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      Tuesday, November 05, 2024


entertainmentstuff
05:43 AM - 11/05/2024

The topic: Our big entertainment expense is television

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We have good cable, all of the movie channels, Gigabyte internet and a ton of streaming channels that I've subscribed to.

I also have a lifetime license for Plex (a couple of times a year they have a pretty decent discount for a lifetime license) and a mini PC to run the Plex server (eBay has great deals on these mini PCs). On this little PC, I also have a NAS setup.

I have software to download programs from the Internet. One is Playon.tv, the other is StreamFab. Both are so that you can be logged in to one of the pay services and download them to a hard drive. Not all streaming services are available. Some services will let you save in HD, others will not. I have some software that will "upgrade" the lesser-quality videos to a better version with AI. These saved movies are accessible on all televisions here via the Plex app. We have two Roku televisions and Roku devices for televisions that aren't Roku TVs. I also have one Amazon television (with an additional Roku device). And an Amazon FireCube for the main TV, a Chromecast device, and an Amazon stick for the TV that hangs on the fireplace. So I can cast the screen of an Android tablet to that TV (I did this to watch the security cameras.) That TV was originally to run a slideshow, using the Plex app and have music in the background (it's a sweet setup).

The problem has been that there are some television shows and movie channels that are not available to be downloaded (MGM+ is one). Our cable company now charges for recording programs. Five dollars a month for the capability of recording one show at a time. Since there aren't that many shows that we watch that we don't have access to on streaming (Fox shows run again on Hulu, MAX, and Peacock have the same relationship with some network shows), I saw no reason to pay an additional amount of money. The two shows that come to mind that I would record are Skinwalker Ranch (alien stuff) and Yellowstone. Skinwalker is available the next day on the streaming History Channel (comes with our cable service), but it has commercials. As far as I can tell, Yellowstone won't be available on streaming until the season is done.

Four years ago, I bought a universal remote thingy from Amazon. I was trying to get one device that would replace all of my remotes. It turned out to be a little more complicated than I thought and there was no way Brian would be able to remember what needed to be done. This stuff is MY deal and I try to make it as easy for both of us as possible. And I never really did much with it.

Researching the internet and forums for a device to record shows from the cable box took a lot of patience. I finally found one that had great reviews, would do what I wanted to do and, even though it was pricey, we'd be using it for years to come. So, I got it.

Of course, this is where I have my most fun - it can be frustrating at times, but what a sense of accomplishment when I'm finished. I'm 71 years old and I can get lost in equipment setup. So many rabbit holes to go down, so many "okay, how can I get it to do this?" We'll be watching something and my mind will be spinning, looking for the most obvious way to implement my idea. Will it work? Will it be a waste of time? Will I learn from my mistakes? Let's find out!

The device worked! Getting used to the setup isn't really intuitive and it seems I have to reset the time more than I should, but that's probably because I don't use it enough. Now, how to set it up to record from the television. I didn't like the idea of leaving it on all the time, but if it was off, the Contour signal didn't get through to the television. An HDMI splitter took care of this. It sounds a little complicated, but it really wasn't. And it recorded nicely to a little external hard drive, so it's all cool.

Now, how do I get the Contour box channel to change on a schedule? See, that's another thing that ended when the latest cable boxes came out. Used to be you could set the channel to change at a set time. No more. Yes, there's a reminder, but you have to be watching when that comes up, it won't just change the channel.

There has to be a way to do this. And guess what? That little universal remote I got four years ago? The one I didn't play around with?  Yep, that guy will change the channel at a scheduled time!  You program it using a smartphone or tablet. All I had at the time was a smartphone and I absolutely loathe having to do anything on the phone. I have sausage fingers and the screen isn't the most responsive thing I've ever worked with and the frustration can be overwhelming. But wait! I wonder if the Android tablet I got this past summer, the tablet that I use to cast the security cameras to that television...I wonder if I could run the remote software on that.

Yesterday, I installed the remote software and oh. my. gosh! Programming the remote is so much easier now!

I set the Cloner to record at 3:00 pm and stop at 5:00 pm. I set the remote to change the channel to 2-5-0 at 2:57 pm, about a half hour from the current time.

And it worked!

I've provided links to what I used in case anyone is interested in how they could do the same thing.

My first attempt at doing this without babysitting it will be on Sunday when the newest episode of Yellowstone drops. Yes, it will have commercials, but when I transfer it to Plex, then watch it, there's an option to skip opening and closing credits and skip commercials as well. That will be a new thing for me, I'm not sure how it will work.

But I'll find out. (All this to save five bucks a month...am I nuts?)

television    plex    broadlink   


      Friday, November 01, 2024


otherstuff
09:05 AM - 11/01/2024

The topic: Okay, let’s not repeat weeks like this

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Well, as of this morning, the dog has seized/fainted Wednesday, Thursday and today. He had an appointment yesterday, his heart is 40% worse. Vet was concerned because it's been such a short time since his initial diagnosis. He was a little dehydrated, so they gave him 100mm of lactated ringers and we're supposed to give him another 100 next Thursday. His furosimide (diuretic) was upped to twice a day. I say "seized/fainted" because the vet said he's fainting, not seizing. Most likely because of the pressure on his heart from the fluid retention. But it sure looks like seizures to us. Especially when he pees during one.

She did mention having a cardiologist check him out since there are drugs that can help, but the dosage is critical and she wouldn't feel comfortable trying anything. The problem is we don't have a lot of money. Sales are down, property taxes are due and we don't have a thousand bucks just lying around. Add to that he recently turned sixteen. We're at that point that practicality has to be considered. Just like if it were one of the cats, we weigh their age, their current physical condition, how long (and comfortable) would their life be. So, we're passing on the cardiologist. We just can't justify it.

Then Wednesday morning, there was knock at the door. Brian answered it. It was the neighbors delivering a notice from their lawyer that they want our liquid amber tree gone. That if we didn't take care of it, they'd have someone come in and cut the branches back to the property line. And they'd sue us to pay the folks who cut it back.

Honestly, we were blindsided. I didn't speak to them, it was all done outside. They took the nuclear option. No beforehand discussion. I could go into detail what bullshit the letter was and how chickenshit they are for taking the road they took. But, it's done. The tree will be gone by the end of the year. Brian and his brother will do it.

I asked Brian if he can take care of it all from our side and not have to step on their property. He's pretty sure he can. But they just burned an already rotting bridge. All sorts of fun petty things I'd love to do run through my head, but that's where they'll stay.

Well, maybe except for the part where when they had the garage built in their backyard, they requested that they could put the retaining wall on a few inches of our property. And part of the landscaping in the front of their house encroaches on our land. There's always that...

So, have a good day, y'all.

jingles    asshole neighbors   


      Sunday, October 27, 2024


geekstuff
11:22 AM - 10/27/2024

The topic: Slider test

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Fingers crossed...it was working, then I couldn't save anything, so I had to figure out why and now I have it figured out, let's try this again.

 
 
 
 

 


      Monday, October 21, 2024


otherstuff
07:05 AM - 10/21/2024

The topic: Knocking on wood…

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After playing around with the programs that weren't working the way they should be working this past week and a half, it looks like maybe it's all good now. I sure hope so.

The camera videos are still there. I'm backing them up a couple of times a day, just in case, but it is really nice to login and see them still where they're supposed to be, not lost in the ether forever. Still, keeping an eye on them. Just in case.

We did have a little burp with the Plex system. And it was all because of closed captions in television shows. Almost 40% of the dialog was missing. We have a lot of ambient noise here and when people whisper, the volume goes up. Then they get loud and it blows us out of our seats. I had to completely uninstall Plex on the PC (I used Revo portable to do this, great software, right now it's on sale, two years for $15, and let me tell you, it's worth every cent; it gets rid of all the bits and pieces of software left behind), then I reinstalled it. It was a PITA to have to wait to have all the media reindexed, but it's great now. The only "grrr" moment was when I lost all of my playlists. But I did have most of them saved as different extensions and used MusConv to convert them back to Plex extensions and they're working, too.

I cut Brian's hair yesterday, vacuumed, and dusted.

Because of the problems with the closed captioning, I also got the headphones working again. Brian has his, I have mine. I use one of these, there are cheaper versions, but they aren't the most reliable in the long run. This thing is great. I did lose the manual, so I found the English version online, downloaded it, printed it out in color, trimmed it down, and made a cute little booklet out of it, highlighting the parts that are pertinent to me. As I've been doing for a while, I used an acrylic pen to mark the connections on the unit that work with my application. (So, the next time I have to do this, it doesn't take me over an hour to figure out why it's not working, which is what happened yesterday.)

All in all, it was a good weekend.

I was disappointed to find out that I'd most likely missed the opportunity to watch the comet, but it won't be the first time I've missed something spectacular. We did have clouds last week then this weekend, when it's clear, the comet has pretty much faded. So, I'll just have to wait 80,000 years to see it, I guess.


      Thursday, October 17, 2024


otherstuff
09:48 AM - 10/17/2024

The topic: Crazy week

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I've been banging my head against the wall with internet technical stuff.

First, our security cameras are supposed to save every video to an external hard drive, which they do. But then, the next day, over half of the previous day's videos have disappeared. Then by mid-day, the entire previous day's entries are just gone. I've contacted their support many times and they still don't understand what the problem is. Frustrating. I've spent the last five days downloading the videos that actually save to the individual cameras on SD cards to a hard drive. It's very time-consuming and I don't want to take away PC power from doing these downloads, so I haven't had a chance to try some of the coding stuff I want to try.

We also have some packages that have to ship to Canada. I use the USPS website to generate the labels. This started on Tuesday. I still haven't done the labels. Why? The USPS form keeps saying the shipping address is invalid. I had a difficult time getting Brian to understand what this means. It means they won't finalize the shipment without a valid address. What about using a flat rate box? he asked.  Well, okay, let me try...nope, our address is still invalid. Try one of the neighbor addresses. Still won't take. I spent almost an hour with support on Tuesday, she had to send the problem up to a higher level. I got an email from them marked "resolved".  Just damn.

I replied with screenshots of the problem and still no response. I sent another (new) email to their support this morning letting them know that because of their non-support, we'll most likely not be offering USPS as a shipping option in the future. Brian is going to go to the local UPS Store to have them ship it via USPS (which is a service they offer). The customer requested USPS, so we're kinda stuck.

And I just keep on keeping on.


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lisaviolet is seventy something, married with no kids, takes care of lots of cats, likes taking photographs, loves Southern California weather and spends altogether too much time avoiding her responsibilities.

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