Bush Mackel

Filed under : “No, REALLY?” it would seem that the big US Electronics store Circuit City might be facing bankruptcy early next year.

I say “No, REALLY” because if you’ve ever been to Circuit City, you know it has paled in comparison to Best Buy ever since Best Buy came into inception basically. The store is dark inside, even more woefully staffed than Best Buy, and just sucks in comparison. (At least on the brick and mortal side of things).

As far as the programs they offer, I tend to like Circuit City more than Best Buy. Their 10% gamer club is pretty good, and them giving you a gift card if they don’t have new release games on the wall is pretty awesome too. Unfortunately, I think these programs have been overlooked by consumers for Best Buy’s Reward Zone where you earn $5 in GC for ever $250 you spend… Even though CC’s gamer club is far better, consumers just think they do better at Best Buy. (an example of genius marketing I guess)

But, maybe all this is neither here or nor there. I think if anyone heard this news (if it actually becomes a reality) that it won’t come as a surprise, though I’m a bit fearful to think of where WORST Buy will go when it faces no decent competition. Maybe us East Coasters will get lucky and we’ll start to get some Fry’s out here. For more…

Not saying that I do it a lot, but when I find myself in a new place the first thing I have to do to feel at home is setup my home theater. So when I bought the new place, first on my list of priorities was to get my home theater stuff up and running!

But then it came to my attention (by way of some friendly wifely reminders) that apparently I was married and had a new kid on the way, so the home theater work became very hurried.

Still, I got SOMETHING done. (#):)

If I Could Start at the Beginning…
I bought my first home theater system from a box for about $300. It was a nice 5.1 system and thankfully the receiver that came with it wasn’t one of those cheap dvd/receiver combos. And over the years as better jobs have afforded me to do so, I’ve updated the system here in there a piece at a time. First it was the receiver that got the upgrade, and then it was the speakers. The last piece that was upgraded was changing my sub from an unpowered to a powered sub.

The Newest Upgrades
Well after moving into the house, I decided to give a big upgrade to two different components of my home theater system, one of which I had never upgraded before. The first one was the receiver. Even though my old one was just fine, it didn’t have HDMI inputs nor did it have support of HD Audio sources. The not having HDMI inputs anywhere has been KILLING me for a LONG long time. The second was, *drumroll* THE DISPLAY! And would you believe it?, I went with a projector! There were a lot of things that went into this decision and rest assured I’ll clue you in on them soon.

The Other Biggie
Not saying that it’s absolutely needed, but one of things that always intrigued me about so called “professional” home theaters was how they often had their audio components in a special place like a closet or something. And so, I went out to build myself my own home theater enclosure! And along the way for this part of the project, I learned a TON that will certainly serve me well in other like minded projects.

Coming Up
I purposefully have not provided much detail about anything here because as I wrote this post, I learned that a single post really couldn’t do any of the above subjects its due justice. So in the next couple of posts I’m hoping to really give some nice detail and pictures about all this stuff. To say it a different way, if you’re a fan of home theater and electronics, some good posts are coming your way! Stay tuned true believers!

I think my wife is an odd person when it comes to presents.

Personally, I like presents to be fun. If you’re gonna get me something, get me something that I’m not going to buy myself and that I’ll have fun using.

My wife on the other hand hates being given anything that she can’t use. Yep. She’s one of those people.

One of those people who likes “useful” gifts.

The Problem
So when mother’s day rolled around (what’s that, like two months ago now?) I was struggling to find a suitable present for her. Around the same time, I started to notice how much she was complaining about having to use 3 different remotes to turn on the TV. If you’ve been following this blog for a while you know that I’m a big home theater fan, so in my house for you to watch something on cable you need one remote to turn on the cable box, another for the TV, and another for the receiver. Depending on the situation you can use one remote and push a different input button to control a different device but that’s still a pain and you often can’t get all the devices under that one remote anyway. PLUS it’s a lock you can’t get all the functionality of those devices into that one remote anyhoo.

The Solution
Enter the Prestigo 10! I first saw this on woot.com and after seeing the price I knew that I had found my wife’s gift! What you have here is a very solid entry level home theater remote. Now stay with me – I know some of you are saying that you don’t have a home theater system, but if you have a couple components just think of this as one of the best universal remotes you can buy for the money.

What Makes This So Special
Oh where do I start!? I know, let’s look at my situation. Before the Prestigo, the wife had to use two or three different remotes to control the TV, Cable and Receiver. Now she uses one. And that one she uses – She’s not selecting the different inputs as she wants to use them. That’s to say when she presses the volume up, it ALWAYS controls the receiver. When she presses the channel up, it ALWAYS controls the cable box. And when she presses the input button, it ALWAYS controls the TV. How cool is that!?

And setup is unbelievably easy. For me, it’s always been a frustration in the past to set up universal remotes because you had to either get online or read the manual to get the device codes. With this remote, all the codes are already in the remote! You just have to select the type of device and the brand and you can start tryin’em out. PLUS, it will keep track of the codes as you go through them so you don’t waste time accidentally try the same code over and over again. Oh, and none of that dumb code search turning the TV ON and OFF nonsense where half the time you lose the code in the process.

Oh, and did I tell you the remote can learn any function from your previous one? So in my case, I made sure to grab all the On Demand features from my cable remote so I could make sure I had them on my Prestigo. And all the receiver functions (like surround mode and inputs) – I got those copied over as well. I also programmed some basic macros into the remote too. My wife’s goto is the ON/OFF which turns on/off all the devices. Mine is probably GAME ON or OFF mode which sets my TVs input to a specific one, and my receiver to a specific one so I can instantly be setup to start gaming!

Why I’m Bringing This Up Now
Well I meant to write about this for a while now since it’s made my tech life so much more enjoyable but as we all know that lately I’ve been struggling with blogging consistently. So better late than never I suppose and I just checked on Amazon, and it’s way way way on sale for about $50. So if you’re in the market or need a gift for your favourite tech lover, check out more of its features including a color LED screen, His and Hers favourite list, Kid lock… And finally, check out the description on woot and buy one under my Amazon Affiliate Link!

It was only recently that I got to see an iPhone in action as a new co-worker of mine is apparently iPhone crazy. Gotta say,

I’m impressed.

There was a time where I was really into cell phones, but after a little bit they just became something else people could use to find me.

As time has gone on, I really wish my phone, (the LG Chocolate), had more features that could easily be used…

Which is naturally why the iPhone is starting to look very attractive to me.

Verizon = No iPhone
And I’m on Verizon so I guess you could simplify the above to Bush = No iPhone. Of course I could switch carriers but I’m on a family plan, then I’d have to buy the $300 phone blah blah blah… So until the iPhone comes to Verizon, I’m probably outta luck. And even when it does, I’d probably still have to convince the wife to let me spend $300 bucks on a cell phone. *nod*

The SDK
When I heard that the SDK was out, I thought that it’d still be cool to develop for the device even though I didn’t have an iPhone because they’d probably have an emulator built into it right? Well unfortunately I didn’t think very hard about the whole thing because I neglected to think about how much the SK would cost. $99. bleh. I think that pretty much pushes me out of the iPhone development game for the time being, especially since I DON’T HAVE AN iPHONE!

But for those of you who do, it looks like there are a ton of cool things you’d be able to accomplish using the SDK including using the iPhone’s OpenGL for 3D games, building “standard” applications helped by code they provide and I guess plethora of other things too. I didn’t look at the whole keynote on Apple’s website, but it’s pretty long and has a lot of info about the whole thing including (I THINK) the ability to download the SDK for free? I’m not exactly sure on that one.

Anyone else have any interest with the iPhone or the SDK? Better question – Anyone planning on doing any development on the iPhone recreationally or professionally?

I can’t believe the big news dropped when I was kaputski but it’s official that HD DVD is dead!

And I say good riddens!

Now don’t get me wrong, I feel bad for all of you who were early adopters of HD DVD.

I mean, at point or another I guess you had about a coin flip’s chance of coming out on top and now…

Well now the writing is on the wall.

Was This How it Should’ve Ended?
I don’t know. Even though I’m definitely more tech savvy than your normal consumer, I never learned of any big differences between the two formats and the smaller ones look to be fixed or getting fixed in recent updates of the Blu-Ray format. So personally I’m just glad things are over so we home theater enthusiasts can put some real money behind a serious solution. But on a related side note, I really wasn’t happy when HD DVD seemed to prolong things by offering HUGE sums of money to buy out studios in support of their format so I’m not really shedding a tear over how things shook out.

HD DVD Fallout
Now that the dust is starting to setting, maybe the most interesting thing is how companies are trying to deal with it all. Engadget HD is a constant source of HD DVD updates and amisdt all the crazy (but true) stuff they report, the thing I’m most interested in is the price of the HD DVD add-on for the 360 being lowered to $49.99. I mean, that’s cheaper than new games!! Obviously, I’m a bit tempted to buy it but then that voice comes back and says, “Hey! They lost remember! How much longer will movies be sold for it!?” But then I think about it for a bit longer and say, “But with a little more time, chances are that prices for HD DVDs could come WAY down!” Oh wait – Looks like they already are.

What do all of you make of this? Should I get a player now? Should I just not and go Blu-Ray when I eventually get a PS3? Do any non home theater fans care about any of this?

The Consumer Electronics Show is nearing an end is Las Vegas and if you haven’t been keeping up, a lot of cool stuff has been coming out of it in the past couple of days!

Lately, I’ve really been getting back into home theater. I just slimmed down and reconnected my own system and it’s looking better than ever.

So it should be no surprise that the first thing to really catch my eye from CES was the very cool, Slingbox Pro HD!

What’s Slingbox?
If you had to make three guesses, you’d probably figure it out – But in a nutshell, Slingbox allows you take your home tv content and “sling” it to another device through the internet such as your laptop or mobile phone. Obviously, this makes for a pretty cool little gadget since now you no longer have to miss your favourite playoff game ’cause your wife drags you to some horrible potluck or something.

Slingbox Pro HD
Slingbox enters into the HD era with the Slingbox Pro HD, now allowing you to watch HD content on your devices. My thoughts are : This is awesome. And even better, there’s something now called the Slingcatcher that allows you to take Slingbox content and play it on a TV! Not too long ago, I was looking at Slingbox to do just this (since my bedroom TV doesn’t have a cable box on it) but I was left out in the cold. Now with a Slingbox and a SlingCatcher… Everything is coming up Millhouse.

The ONLY problem I have at the moment with the Slingbox Pro HD is the lack of a HDMI connection. From the video I saw on G4, this is because HDMI’s HDCP which means that a HDMI signal can’t be copied… Which means no worky with the Slingboxy. If you wanna check out the video from G4, click the picture above!

I’m a home theater enthusiast.

That’s to say that I love tinkering with my home theater setup, I love improving it when I can, and I love learning about the technology.

I bought my first home theater system in 1997. That’s just about 10 years ago. I can’t believe that. 10 years ago. Looking back at my first setup, I’m amazed at how smart or lucky I was to get a halfway decent system from a box.

Let me explain.

Home Theater Systems in a Box

Recently, people seem to be coming to me in droves asking me how to get started with home theater. And they always ask me what I think about this system or that system… And regardless of what system they’re referring to, the system always seems to come from a box. I don’t let that deter me and I always go ahead and check out the system. But more often than not, I come to the conclusion :

The system sucks!

Where Have the Receivers Gone?

Every home theater package that I see has at its center a DVD player. What the devil is that about?! MAYBE 10 years ago that’d be ok, but now we just have too many things that we can get great audio from! Cable, MP3 players, DVD players, video game systems are just a few examples.

And if you have a DVD player as the heart of your system, seriously – How many things can you hope to plug in at one time?! And even if you ARE able to plug multiple things in, a DVD player probably won’t be able to decode all the surround sound formats that are on DVDs.

Hello!? Why would you want to set yourself for disappointment by getting a system that’s not able to intelligently let you listen to the multi channel audio that’s in everything nowadays? I just don’t get it.

Check out the Connections

I am in no way in expert in home theater especially not at the moment, but I can still give you a great tip when buying home theater systems from a box. First, get a system with a receiver. And before you actually buy it, turn it around and look at the connections. Make sure there’s plenty, and make sure it has component. (Since currently you be hard pressed to find one with HDMI connections).

After that, just enjoy your $300 system or however much it cost. Now that you have some speakers and a receiver, you can update things in stages as you go forward all the while enjoying some fantastic sound!

Any of you looking to get a home theater or already have one? Or maybe a better question, anyone bought a home theater system from a box to be disappointed with it later?

Anyone catch the Charlie Brown reference? Anyone? No?

Well in any event – Now that the holiday season is upon us, many will be going to the attic to get those same old tangled holiday bulbs that are used year after year. But now with HolidayLEDS.com, we all have plenty of reasons to try something new.

“Why are HolidayLEDs Right for Me?”
HolidayLEDs are Christmas lights that use 1/10th the energy and will last for more than 50,000 hours compared to less than 2000 for standard bulbs. What that means for you is saved money and more sensible behavior towards the environment. See? Obviously worth a second look. If you’re still not convinced, you should know that the company certainly practices what it preaches and strives to reduce waste and help the environment even at the office which is certainly an effort I can applaud.

So hey if you someone who likes to be up on all that’s new and cool, want to help the environment, or justs likes Christmas lights, certainly give HolidayLEDs a look.

The preceding was a sponsored post.

I had hoped that I wasn’t going down to the wire here with the second part to the Black Friday Gameplan but that’s fine.

Sometimes, that’s just what happens. (#):)

So let’s recap what we’ve done so far… In part 1 we…

1. Figured out the things we wanted to get.
2. Checked out the sales
3. Researched
4. Wrote down specific models and locations
5. Scope out the store layout

Today we’re going to focus on basically one thing : EXECUTION. It will be the difference between how long you have to stay in line.

1. Check Online Sales
As Sassy reminded me the other day in a comment, you gotta check online to see if you can get any of the deals you want online. This could really be a time saver as you may be able to avoid going all around a store getting a bunch of little things.

2. Dress Smart
We’re not planning to be in the stores for long, but we are probably going to be standing outside the store in lines for a while. That means you gotta dress appropriately. For me, that means dressing WARM. There’s nothing worse than having to stand somewhere for hours and you’re horribly cold. Think about hats, gloves, and a good coat and socks.

3. WHEN YOU’RE IN LINE – Ask employees questions!
The biggest question you should be asking is, “Where is product X located”. The worst thing that can happen is the doors to your store open and you don’t know where you’re going. If you’re able to get your objects fast and efficiently, you’ll be out the store in no time. But other questions may be important to such as, “Do you really have these in stock?” or “Where are ALL the available registers?”

4. When the doors open, walk fast and grab the important stuff.
Walk fast, get what you need and get out. Smaller items like CDs and DVDs will probably be there all day so don’t bother wasting time early in the day for this stuff. Avoiding them now and coming back for them later could save you A LOT of time in long morning lines.

And um, I think that’s about it. Have a good time and get some good deals!

As you all know, one of my favorite days of the year, Black Friday is just about upon us.

Now that we’re going into the final stretch, it’s important that all of us nail down a final gameplan so that once the big shopping day arrives, we’re not caught with our pants down.

Here’s how your plans should go so that you can make sure you can what you want as fast as you can so that you’re in and out of stores in the quickest time possible. You don’t want to be standing in lines for a minute longer than you have to…

1. Figure out the things you want to get.
Obviously, you should figure out what things you wanna buy before you do anything else. Since the prices are usually so good, you should think about XMas gifts for others and of course yourself.

2. Once you have a list, check out the sales.
Now is where you go to a Black Friday site and actually check out the adscans so that you can start to see who is selling what and at what price. At this point, you may not be necessarily nailing your items down to specific ones, but getting a ball park figure of Store A selling a digital camera at price X vs Store B selling a similar camera at price Y.

3. Research.
If the products you’re looking at aren’t “specific one version items” (like a specific game for a specific system) you need to do some research. This means that if you’re looking at cameras TVs or GPS units, you’re looking on the net for specs and reviews. Can’t stress that last part enough especially if you’re not too familiar with what you’re buying. Ask friends in the know or tech savvy co-workers for help if need be.

4. Write down specific models and locations
After the research you did in step 3, you need to write down the specific locations and models of things that you’re after. Not only is it crucial in figuring out which stores you’re going to hit in what order, but the model information may prove critical on Black Friday as you may have to relate it to store employees to get what you need fast.

5. Scope out the store layout
If you’re not familiar with where your target items are normally located in the store, you need to figure that out fast. Depending on whether your items are just “on sale” or “doorbuster items”, you will either find your items in their respective areas or usually on the floor in a big pile ready to be picked off by the eager consumer.

Tomorrow we’ll look what you do ON Black Friday so that you get what you want faster than everyone else!