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December 22, 2003
Considering Satellite Radio
XM or Sirius. Everyone suggests XM, for various reasons...
I've thought it's cool since I first heard about it; now -- given the overwhelming number of christmas songs -- it's almost a requirement. ;-)
I'm thinking about having this be my birthday and chanukah presents ( since I want the boom box, the car kit, the unit itself, and something that lets me hook it up to my computers ). And loaning it to Amy until after the xmas music season. ;-)
UPDATES:
http://www.xmradio.com/skyfi/onthego.jsp
1) Damn them. The "XMPC" to hook up to the computer is NOT a 'kit' it's a separate unit, so I'd have to pay a separate receiver charge. sigh. http://shop.pcconnection.com/web/Shopping/Product.htm?product%5Fid=441504
2) The "House Kit" ( http://www.xmradio.com/catalog/product_detail.jsp?id=28446&type=Accessory ) seems reasonable, except for the $70 pricetag. :) Why are all the toys I like so expensive?
3) The "Auto Kit" ( http://www.xmradio.com/catalog/product_detail.jsp?id=28447&type=Accessory ) is another $70. It looks like it has the same cradle which just pisses me off. Sigh.
4) And THEN we have to buy the actual tuner. ( http://www.xmradio.com/catalog/product_detail.jsp?id=28449&type=Tuner ). This is the model that allows the use of the "Boom Box", the Car Kit and the Home Kit. If I knew whether the Boom Box could output RCA or headphones, that would be my choice. They really made this nasty (requiring the various cradles)... Good for Delphi, bad for consumers.
5) The piece I also want is the Boom Box ( http://www.xmradio.com/catalog/product_detail.jsp?id=28644&type=Accessory ). IF it has one or more external 'headphone' jacks. OK it does.
Sigh. Add it up. List prices:
Receiver: $130
Boom Box: $99
Car Kit: 70
House Kit: 70
PC Unit: 50 (maybe)
Monthly subscription: $10 (or $199 for a 2-year, or $459 for a 5-year which drops it to $7.48/month). I'd probably go for the 2-year and figure out how to drop it back to annual if we wanted a second or third tuner.
So minimum cost is $200 + subscription, $270 (Boom + Receiver + Car Kit) for what I'd likely get. Now, how cool is this again? I could buy a computer for this price!!!! *heh*
Posted by aland at 11:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 4, 2003
REALLY annoying problem
Has anyone seen this? My laptop at work can upload to the internet 20x faster than it can upload to something on the same network. Ideas?
I've tried the following:
Laptop to Linux Server: slow
Laptop to Windows Server: slow
Laptop to host on internet: fast
Linux Server to Laptop: fast
Internet to Laptop: fast
Server to Laptop: fast
Linux Server to Internet: fast
I've been working around this by copying large files to the internet and then back to the server, which is INSANE. I'm going to swap cables between the two machines at my desk and see if that helps...
Posted by aland at 12:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Misc. trivia
Neat command line for Unix - assumes that "locate" db is kept up to date:
locate /core | grep core$ | xargs file
That'll return core files, ignoring stuff where core is just 'in' the name.
locate /core | grep core.\*$ | xargs file
will include the core files with .[pid] in the filename but will also include some other random files... Sorry. :)
Also useful:
http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~sudhakar/linux/trivia.html
which helped me figure out how to get sshd working on my XP box (cygwin).
Posted by aland at 11:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack