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Books as Tech: A Tribute to Reading Rainbow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6j8EiWIVZs

Books, with the exception of our critiquing issues with the Kindle and E-Book readers, don’t usually appear on Gadget Wisdom. They aren’t gadgets, and while we are a tech blog, the book isn’t usually thought of as tech.

But think about it…aren’t they? Johannes Gutenberg, in the 15th century, invented the first viable printing press(which was first used in the moneymaking enterprise of printing indulgences for the Church, but that is another story). The history of printing, as a man demonstrating a printing press at a Historical Village showed us, is full of technology. Remember that before printing, books would have to be copied by hand.

More recently, we’ve talked about On-Demand book printing machines, which we believe is the future of bookstores.

But today, August 28th, Reading Rainbow comes to the end of its 26-year run on television. The show, started in 1983, was hosted by Levar Burton(best known to most of you as that blind guy from Star Trek, or that Roots thing). During the show, kids gave their own reviews of books, and Burton featured a real-life adventure inspired by a book. No one will put up the money to renew the show’s broadcast rights, thus dooming it.

The fallacy, according to the people at PBS, is that the show was designed to teach children a love of reading, and they want to put their money into teaching kids basic reading skills. Unlike many children’s shows…Reading Rainbow was not torture. Many children’s programs make us cringe. Anyone over the age of ten who watches them with youngsters wants to claw his or her eyes out pretty early on. We can thank Levar Burton, who spearheaded the show, for speaking simply, so that children could understand, but keeping quality high.We can count Reading Rainbow on the list of children’s programs we would still watch today.

It brings up the larger question of the future of books entirely. Without fostering a lifelong love of learning and of books, children in an increasingly technological world will let them go by the wayside. Already children are demanding multimedia education over reading, so a world in which the written word because less and less prominent is a horrible possibility.

From a technical standpoint, nothing digital replaces the feeling and ease of a real book, even the minute we spent looking at the Kindle. We continue to add bookshelves to our home, and reading on a computer screen is something we do, it doesn’t have the same relaxing appeal. It is the relative inexpensive nature and ease of use of books that has made reading and education accessible to all of us. Technology surrounding them may continue to improve, but books are here to stay for the long-term…if only we get a new generation interested in reading. But, as Levar Burton said, “you don’t have to take our word for it.”

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Published on August 28, 2009
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Urgent: Change your Wireless Security Settings

Linksys WAP54G 802.
Image via Wikipedia

Crunchgear reports today that researchers have developed an attack against WPA Encryption when using the TKIP protocol.

If you haven’t already, change your wireless access point security settings to the AES Protocol, or switch to WPA2 to stay one step ahead of them. Or, if you are out and about, and cannot do so, consider using SSH Tunneling or  VPN to encrypt your connection a second time.

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Published on August 27, 2009
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Western Digital Unveils Two New Media Options

The WD Media Player is a great device in both price and features. It plays almost any file off of a USB-connected flash or hard drive.

Details have been leaked of the next generation WD-TV-2, which adds a network connection for streaming video from a network connected drive. This device could replace the old computers we currently have connected to some televisions for easy media playback from our network server, although we may hold out for an Ion computer. Either way, it looks like a good update. More to come as details are available.

Western Digital has also added a discount option. The WD TV Mini. It is smaller than the current box and loses HDMI and full 1080p in favor of analog HD and SD outputs only.

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Published on August 19, 2009
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More on the Analog Loophole

Component video cable with RCA connections.
Image via Wikipedia

In our previous post on the subject, we discussed the Analog Loophole, and how we were using the HD-PVR 1212 to capture HD video.

We’d had some problems, and reduced the quality to 720p and AAC analog audio only. After a week, on Thursday night we switched back to AC3 digital audio delivered using an optical toslink cable. So far, the recordings are stable. Our next step will be to switch from 720p only to 1080i only. And we ultimately hope to allow both 720p and 1080i to record, so that we can record both HD formats that are broadcast without any scaling.

But, what if they close the Analog Loophole? There is a solution out there. GeekTonic recently had a guest-post on the subject. It discusses the HD-Fury2 It provides an HDMI input, and a component video output. The HD-Fury2 and the HD-PVR will work together, so even if they turn off the component outputs, this will enable an analog path.

Why do we need the analog loophole? Well, our cable company encrypts almost everything. If they missed something, any day it could be gone. We have, in addition to the HD-PVR, a Silicondust HDHomeRun, with is a dual digital tuner that works with cable and broadcast. One day, we came home and they’d encrypted TNT-HD, one of the few channels outside of broadcast they offered.

We use the Silicondust HDHomerun for unencrypted cable and broadcast, mostly to allow us to record cable and broadcast channels simultaneously, although us not to have to rely exclusively on the one cable box hooked into the system. The HDHomerun is a very well supported device. The developers are very involved, and continue to release new firmware. The latest version of the firmware improves channel scanning and handling, among other things.

Like anything, you have to find the solution that works for you. Even if we lost cable entirely tomorrow, we could switch to Broadcast and maintain a good selection of programming. We choose however, to continue to push what we can do and learn and explore new things.  More on this to come.

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Published on August 16, 2009
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The HD-PVR and MythTV

HDPVR
Image by Geek Tonic via Flickr

For years now, we have run a MythTV DVR. It is a Linux-based software package that turns a computer into a digital video-recorder, complete with scheduling of programs.

We started with a single cable box with an active firewire connection to change the channel and a PVR-250 card we got cheap. That encoded the composite output from the box to MPEG2.

Eventually, we got the hang of firewire, discovered a bunch of tricks to get it to cooperate without crashing, and we’re working almost entirely off of cable with firewire, using a digital tuner to add redundancy on broadcast stations.

Then one day, the cable company shut down every firewire connection. The channel changing still works, but not streaming directly from the box. So we ordered the HD-PVR 1212.

The HD-PVR turns high definition component video and analog or digital audio into H264-encoded files. Ultra-compressed, and requiring a good CPU to decode. It exploits the so-called “analog loophole“, allowing one to record HD video off of an HD source.

And MythTV will support it in Version 0.22. Some have backported the device support to 0.21, the current stable version. So, we upgraded our installation(after a backup) to the 0.22 ‘bleeding’ version. You use development versions at your own risk. Unless you are contributing to the process with information, complaints about things not working will be ignored, mostly.

The HD-PVR seemed very buggy under Version 0.22, capturing at all resolutions, 480i, 720p, 1080i, with AC3 audio. And all of the files were filled with corruption, making it hard to play them back. So, the other night, despite the notation that the ability of the HD-PVR to handle multiple resolutions at a time had been stabilized, we reverted to 720p and AAC analog audio. So far, it has made everything rock solid. We’re doing tests of this over this weekend, after which we’ll try bringing back AC3 audio and/or 1080i, to see how high a quality we can get with complete stability.

The HD-PVR is a decent device that is developing better Linux-based support.  It is unfortunately the best option for recording HD video from other sources, as any digital options are shut down by the content providers.

More on our efforts in this area when all tests are complete.

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Published on August 7, 2009
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Fedora and Netbooks

In a recent blog post, Michael Dehaan, a software developer comments on his experience with the Ubuntu Netbook Remix versus Fedora 10. Dehaan points out that Fedora could learn a lot from it.

We can’t disagree. Openness and sharing is what Linux is all about. Fedora doesn’t have a spin for netbooks. There is a Special Interest Group for “Fedora Mini”, which was originally intended for netbooks, but has the expanded focus of other devices.

A lot of the work in a mini distribution is reducing dependencies. While hard drive space makes extra program installation not as much of a problem, current trends toward speed, efficiency, and bandwidth limiting suggest that we should be looking at this. For example, Fedora installs Bluetooth services on a system regardless of whether or not there is a bluetooth adapter installed. It installs smart card authentication on everything. And the default option during an installation is to configure software packages after installation, not before.

Michael seemed to have a lot of trouble with Fedora on Netbooks. We did not with our little MSI Wind. Initially, there were no drivers for the wireless card, but we were able to compile them. Then, because we don’t like unstable drivers, even if they did work, we swapped the stock card for an Intel one with great Linux support.

We’ve tried Ubuntu Netbook Remix, and it does offer a lightweight environment and a good launcher. But there are good launchers available of similar design available for Fedora. The lightweight LXDE environment is available through Fedora, as is XFCE, which in its latest version has a more traditional GUI design than its predecessors.

The fact is that we must agree and disagree. What Fedora lacks is a good lightweight spin. Which is a shame. Fedora has all the tools to be lightweight with personal tweaking.

There are things in the works though. The Fedora LXDE spin is set to be offered as part of Fedora 12, and an XFCE spin which has been offered for several iterations of Fedora.

What we would like to see, and perhaps we should suggest it, is increasing the number of default setup profiles in the default DVD installation, or allowing a custom profile to be loaded in. Currently, the Kickstart process, which is designed mostly to automate administrator installations for multiple systems, allows for this, but we’d like to see a Fedora supported initiative in this direction. A minimalist server profile, a minimalist desktop profile, etc.

Ubuntu offers a Desktop and a Server LiveCD as its primary installation media. We like the fact Fedora offers both this and a DVD where the most popular softwares can be installed on multiple systems without repeated downloads. We just think that the default installation needs to be streamlined, or offer the options to be streamlined without having to hack together a customer version of Fedora or download multiple different LiveCDs. We, as we said, could do this using Kickstart, but we’d like it if Fedora took the lead on it as well.

That said, the full version of Fedora 11 works wonderfully on our netbook, and while we’ve tried Ubuntu Netbook Remix on an Eee…we’ll stick with what we are familiar with.

Published on July 13, 2009
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We Still Want a Kindle – But We Don’t Want To Want It

Amazon Kindle
Image by davidking via Flickr

Last week, Amazon lowered the price of the Kindle to $299, a reduction of $60. We want a Kindle, but we don’t want to want a Kindle. It is still a bit pricey for its limitations.

What does that mean? Well, the Kindle is the greatest e-book reader out there…not because of its hardware, but because of the sheer amount of titles Amazon offers and the ease of getting them through the Kindle. The smartest thing Amazon could do is license the Kindle source to anyone, and we still await that.

Reports indicate that Amazon is exploring ad-supported Kindle books for additional revenue. Publishers are afraid Amazon will force them to lower their profit margins on e-books. Publishers hope new players like PlasticLogic, FirstPaper, ScrollMotion, and Google‘s e-publishing service could help turn the tables in their favor. But so far, Amazon has an early lead.

We are hoping competition does come along. Google plans to sell readers online access to digital versions of various books, and the books would be cached in their browser when offline. This seems like an improved system. A simple browser plugin could handle this. They appear, for their early copyright-free public domain books, to be working with the ePub format, which is an official open standard.

Our fondest dream is to use the Kindle to free up space. We have so many shelves of books. Some of them could be digitized. We’ve done this when we rid ourselves of most of our VHS cassettes and started to replace audio cassettes with CDs.

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Published on July 13, 2009
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Keep Thinking About the Kindle

NEW YORK - FEBRUARY 09: A reporter holds the ...
Image by Getty Images via Daylife

We’ve maintained, and continue to maintain the Kindle is not yet at the price point where the upfront cost is offset enough by the benefits. Endgadget, however, reports that Amazon has dropped indications it sees the Kindle readers and Kindle books as two separate businesses.

This is actually good for us…the people who want e-books to become more ubiquitous. We don’t want the paper book to go away though. We believe there is a place for it in this world. Our concern is that the lowering of the hardware will produce an increase in the price of the book itself. Currently, a Kindle book can average $9.99, more or less. A hardcover book could be over double that. On a $9.95 book, an analysis suggests Amazon only makes 61 cents.

In the fight of Kindle vs. Netbook, we opted for netbook, because it is a multifunciton device, compared to the Kindle, which is good for one thing only. But imagine if the Kindle reader became a software program available for all operating systems? What if Amazon licensed the reader software to other companies to allow the books to be read on many systems? What could that mean for the future?

The latest confusion over the Kindle is its DRM policy. Apparently, there is a limit to how many times you can download the book, even though you have bought it, and it varies from publisher to publisher…even better, no one at Amazon seems to know how to find out what the number is. The limit may actually be on the number of devices you can have the book on simultaneously, but as of now, it is still unclear. Ultimately, we remain curious what limits are put on the free distribution of content you bought amongst your own devices. Since your ownership of the book now depends on a third-party…namely Amazon, supporting your device, how does this effect your life?

So, what are the alternatives? We’ll be looking into them a bit more, as we want to take advantage of them.

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Published on June 22, 2009
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Obama the Nerd President

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW7OPByRGDY

John Hodgman, best known as the PC in Apple’s insulting the competition ads, spoke at the Radio and TV Correspondents Dinner. Hodgman goes into nerd and geek versus jock as philosophical terms, and gives Obama a test to definitively prove once and for all if he is a nerd, a geek, or possibly a space alien sent to enlighten mankind(we’re kidding). Well, either way, it is worth checking out.

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Published on June 22, 2009
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Fedora 11 – Palimpsest Saves the Day

Fedora Linux 10
Image by Dekuwa via Flickr

Yesterday, those of you following our tweets know that we continued our Fedora migration plan. The plan was sidetracked when the new Fedora 11 monitoring advised us of a hard drive problem.

SMART, System Monitoring and Reporting Tool, is built into every hard drive, and does not seem to be utilized under Windows(feel free to correct us on this. It might be hiding there somewhere). Linux has always offered a monitoring daemon, but now that is coupled with Palimpsest Disk Utility, a frontend to the disk functions of DeviceKit, so alerts come to the desktop. DeviceKit is a replacement for the older HAL system, and creates a uniform interface.  “This is a simple system service that a) can enumerate devices; b) emits signals when devices are added removed; c) provides a way to merge device information / quirks onto devices.”

So, after letting it do a check to confirm, we swapped out the drive, and used it as an excuse to clean the interior of the computer and add extra ventilation, and resumed installation.

The two machines done are part of our MythTV system, where simple computers take the place of cable boxes, so nothing is stored on the drive except the software. All the video comes over the network from the backend(the last machine to get Fedora 11). But had the hard drive contained critical data, this feature would have prevented a major disaster.

In a disappointment, both machines, which run Nvidia video, did not work with Plymouth by default, but the boot on them is so fast you hardly see the splash screen anyway.

As a final measure, the remaining Fedora 10 machine will now download its updates directly from the internet, allowing us to delete our 30GB Fedora 10 Repository. The Fedora 11 machine will continue to use the assembled Fedora 11 repository.

The remaining machine is the hardest because it is where all the data is stored. Fedora Upgrade Time is a time to think about new hardware. Perhaps a hard drive might need to be replaced, etc. Migration of large amounts of data is difficult. The system must be slowly backed up and emptied, using a combination of optical burns, backup hard drives, etc. It will take a bit more work.

We continue to find new things to love about Fedora 11. The continual improvement to hardware handling is one of them. More to come.

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Published on June 18, 2009
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