Pinnacle PCTV HD PCI Tuner == Junk

A few weeks ago I jumped into the murky waters of the world of HDTV with the express intention of being able to hook a PC up to the television so I could watch movies and play MP3's. I also had this grand notion of being able to cable my satellite receiver directly into the PC using a tuner-card and having one interface to rule them all. I think the idea was pretty solid. I bought a Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse to hook up to my IBM S50, which in turn is connected to my 42" Insignia television.

The S50 has a dual-core 2.2Ghz Pentium 4 processor... and a gig of ram... and an nVidia video card, yet the video output from the Pinnacle card is unreliable at best. If you make the video full screen, or just drag the window around, its like you've just asked the computer to calculate the answer to the Ultimate Question (about life, the universe and everything.) SLOW. I couldn't believe it.

So, I did some reading of reviews. Apparently, I'm not the only person who's had this problem with the PCTV card. It is, in fact, quite common. Now, ordinarily I'd write this off as being symptomatic of infant technology, but I know this ISN'T infant tech because a good friend of mine was doing this back in 1999 on an AMD K62!!! This is a classic case of a crappy product.

Unfortunately for me, I don't really want to spend the extra $50 to go to a better video input card, so I just returned it to Best Lies/Buy and that's that. I'll take the coin I had tagged for that card and buy a two-port KVM so I can get 'vicious' back on-line.

BBC NEWS | UK | Archbishop defends Sharia remarks

BBC NEWS | UK | Archbishop defends Sharia remarks

...the man is clearly a lunatic. Sharia law is entirely counter to everything that Western Civilization is based on and any fool who thinks the two can be "integrated" is stark-raving mad. Of course, the Archbishop of Canterbury is essentially a lunatic from the onset, these latest comments about integrating Sharia law are just the proof of it.

$2400 loan from my kids... sort of.

As many media outlets have reported recently, Chief Village Idiot (a.k.a. President Bush) has managed to convince the morons in Congress that giving people a loan from their kids is a good idea... 'cept they called it an "economic stimulus plan". What the hell? I never studied economics, but from what I've been able to pick-up by the limited reading I've done on the subject tells me that this "stimulus" plan is really just a band-aid on a gun-shot wound. This is the second most baffling move made by the Bush administration in recent memory. The first most baffling being the administration's utter failure in all things even REMOTELY concerned with the environment. And I voted for this guy? Shoot me now... oh wait, yeah, the alternative was John Kerry, never mind.

Intertrusion Migration

If you're landing here, chances are that you're coming from my domain, intertrusion.com. A few weeks back the server that hosted intertrusion.com took a dive. Hardcore. Since, I've decided that maintaining my own box -- though geekier -- just isn't worth the time anymore. SO, I have setup THIS blog to take the place of my former WordPress blog. As for the content of my old blog, I'll eventually get it over here, I just haven't had the time to jump through all the hoops I have to in order to get that data back. Enjoy, and sorry for any disruption.

"New" PIX506

I was at a client's site today, helping them implement their shiny new ASA 5510 when the topic of their "old" remote office firewalls came up. Tim, the client, mentioned they had a half-dozen, or so, PIX506 firewalls that they had no use for. I asked if I could buy one, and he made it happen.

I got home, got the password recovered, wiped the config, and put it up on-line. In an odd twist of fate, I discovered I have only ONE ethernet cable in my entire house. W-T-F? That was the low point of my geekdom... how could I only have ONE Ethernet cable and call myself a geek? Pfft.

Next up: get the VPN setup so I can hit my LAN from the road! woot!

Register.COM FINALLY got my domains transferred

I swear! If ever a system existed to systematically oppress progress, it is InterNIC's domain transfer policy! Combine that with Register.com's pushy, archaic, dreadful domain transfer protocol, and you're probably better off hanging yourself than getting on with a domain transfer. I'm not kidding, it took inordinately LONG. I started this process on January 26... it just happened YESTERDAY. That's five days in January and 6 days in February. ZOMG!

Anywho, everything is now over at bluehost and eventually I'll get stuff up there. I'm probably going to leave my blog here until such a time as blogger does something to piss me off righteously and I decide to go it alone.

CAIR, ADL, and SPLC are the REAL bigots

I have never been coy or subtle about my utter disrespect for Islam. I have substantial respect for Judaism. I'm not a racist. On the contrary, the people at the CAIR, ADL and SPLC have labeled me as such because I am a "Traditional Catholic" and because I pray for the conversion of Jews and all non-Catholics. The CAIR, ADL and SPLC are at the nascent of their mind-war against all Christians, beginning with Traditional Catholics. Watch, because in the coming weeks and months, you'll see a ratcheted-up propoganda campaign. They'll start with the extremists like Michael Savage, and they'll move on to progressively less and less obviously skewed positions. Mark my words.

Microsoft Makes $44.6 Billion Offer to Buy Yahoo

All kidding aside, yesterday I thought, "Microsoft is going to buy Yahoo!". This particular thought was sparked because of my now nearly complete conversion to Google web apps where I had previously been a die-hard Yahooligan. Turns out, I was right as Microsoft Makes $44.6 Billion Offer to Buy Yahoo. Stunning. The REALLY cool part is going to be how [I hope] this drives competition. Time will tell.