Slingers!

A lot of you may already know this but most of you probably don't. But what would you say if I told you that you can watch your television at home from anywhere you can get a halfway desent Internet connection? Well you may not exactly understand what I am saying, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter, because you can. It's called the "Slingbox" from Sling Media and after several months of kicking around the idea, I finally jumped in and bought one. And you know what? It kicks fucking ass!

And it's also really easy to setup. I bought the unit online for like $185 shipped. I got the "AV" model which is one of three available ones. You can buy the "Tuner" model for the same price but the biggest difference is that you can actually control your cable or satellite box with the "AV" model. Yes, that means you can even access shows you have recorded on your DVR if your provider's box has that functionality. The "Tuner" model is for people that have only antennae programming or basic cable. In this unit the Slingbox itself has a tuner in it and it scans for channels and you can just change channels on the Slingbox itself as if it were a TV itself.

I have a Dish Network DVR box so I definitley wanted to be able to watch my pre-recorded programs, so I picked up the "AV". Anyway, the unit has S-Video and RCA jacks that you can choose to input the Dish Network signal from. I just kept it simple and used the RCA's. Then there are these two infrared remote transmitters that you need to stick to the bottom of the Dish Network box and they reach out in front of the IR sensor of the Dish box. These serve to work just like your Dish Network remote control does. So when you initiate a command from the on-screen remote on your computer, the IR transmitter will signal that to the Dish box. Obviously the Slingbox has a power cord and then finally there is an ethernet cable that needs to run from your Slingbox over to your router so that the unit gets Internet access. This was the most challenging thing but my house has a 4-ft crawl space so I just drilled a small whole in the floor and ran the ethernet cable down that and then over to a air vent openning by where my router resides and then puched it up through that vent to reach the router. Not to difficult. Sling also sells a little box that plugs into any electrical outlet in your house and then has a twin box that can be plugged into any other outlet that might be near your router. You can then run the ethernet into that and then out of the second box and into the router. The boxes actually send the ethernet signal over your homes internal electical wires to each other. This solution runs about $99.

Anyway, back to the fun. So once that is all hooked in, you just have to go to your PC and install the SlingPlayer software. The installation is pretty sweet because the install file will actually automatically configure your router to allow the Slingbox access to incoming connections as long and you have a router that supports uPnP. Most do so you don't really need to worry.

As you walk through the setup the software will ask you what kind of service you have and what model of cable or satellite box you are using. You select the one you have from a list and then it does the rest. You have to then enter in a code that they call the "Slingfinder ID". This code is individual to each Slingbox and what it does is pretty convenient. Basically it goes out and tells a server at SlingMedia what IP address your Internet connection is using so that when you try to access your Slingbox remotely, the Slingplayer software will know where to find your Slingbox on the Internet. If they didn't have this service then you would have to constantly be checking your router to see what IP address your ISP has issued to you at that given time. If you have a fixed IP address then you don't have to worry about this, but very few home grade Internet services provide fixed IP's.

So then the software connects and you start seeing whatever is on your TV at home on your computer screen. It's pretty cool because the software actually shows you a near lifesize image of the same remote control you use at home. Since you already know how to use that you won't have to learn anything new.

There is about a 3-4 second delay in the video feed from what is actually happenning on your TV at home, but that's not too big a deal. Also, when you click buttons on the remote it has a slight lag of about a second before you see the command you initiated actually happen on your computer screen. But that is to be expected since everything has to traverse the web and back.
Also, one issue you may be thinking of but where unsure about is what this means for the TV viewer that is still at your house? Well, you are still watching that same TV feed. So if you login and start changing channels then whoever is already watching the TV will see the channels get changed on them. So it's pretty much as if you were in the room with them and just stole the remote control away. I figure this isn't that big of a deal because most houses have more than one TV. So if I am away from home and want to log in to view some TV then my wife can always go into another room and watch what she wants.

My excuse for getting this was because my brother-in-law, who lives in Brazil, loves the program LOST. They don't play the new episodes until about a 8 months later down in Brazil and for him to download the episodes takes forever. So now he just has to login to our TV att he same time we are watching it or he can log in during the day while we are at work and view a DVR recorded episode. He's already done it once and he said it worked great.

One more thing. Sling Media makes a viewer program for Windows Mobile powered phones of which I own one. I've already installed the player and now when I'm sitting in waiting rooms or need to watch a sports game while waiting for my airplane to board I can. It drains my battery on my phone about as much as an actual phone call. They are charging an extra $30 for the mobile player software but you can demo it for free for 30 days to see if you like it.

So after it's all said and done I highly reccommend this product. It's a breeze to setup and it really delivers a very watchable broadcast with only the need of a minimam 200Kbps connection. Oh yeah, thy als make a "Pro" version which has multiple source inputs for up to 4 devices. If you have a DVD changer then you could actually hook that up to this unit be able to view your whole DVD collection on the go.

Click here to go to Sling Media's website

Guilty Pleasure

Ok, so I'm a fan of the reality show Big Brother. I'll be honest, I really like survivor too. Me and the wife used to enjoy Donald Trump's Apprentice but that has really gone downhill. I'm not sure what it is about these shows because I didn't like them at all when they premiered in the late 90's. But just in the past 2-3 years I've been addicted. I actually caught Big Brother because I used to have a Tivo and if you've ever used a Tivo then you know that it has an option you can enable where the Tivo unit itself will look at the shows you've chosen to record and then choose other programs that it thinks are similar in nature to the ones you have selected. A lot of the stuff it tapes is absolute crap but one summer it did start taping Big Brother. In fact, I hadn't checked the taped programs list for several weeks and I had like 9 episodes waiting there to view. So I gave it a try.

I think I only got into it because I had so many episodes available to me to watch all at once. If I only would have had one to watch and then had to wait another few days to see the next episode then I probably would have bailed. But having a lazy Saturday afternoon and 9 pre-taped episodes led to me clamoring for more BB madness.

I think at the heart of it I like it so much because it really does mirror the politics of the world. You have these 14 people all stuck in this house, just like you have the 6 billion Earth population all stuck on the same planet. Then the fun starts and you see how people align with one another against other groups or individuals. Maybe it's a really bad lesson they are teaching, but it really is interesting if you pay attention past the stupid show challenges and mindless banter. Everyone is a politician in this house and they are all trying to just survive to the next week.

It's really a microcosm of our world. People will say what they have to just like real politicians. Whatever needs to be done to preserve thier future is done. Deals are sometimes made with unsavory players and sometimes all out clashes occur when one alliance completley hates another. And there are also usually floater players that have not aligned with alliances, just like there are more nuetral countries in the world.

This show really can give you an education on political scenarios. Yes, you have to infer and look beneatht he fluff, but it is definitley there. Again, I'm not making a moral judgement on the lesson's this show is teaching but I can definitely confirm that it makes great TV for all!

Check out this daily updated blog as to what's happenning in the current BB7 house.

HamsterWatch Website

The Business of Friendship

So my wife gets approached by a lady at work who is a Sales Consultant for Mary Kay cosmetics. The lady asked her to attend a meeting to hear about the opportunity and see what she thought. I really thought nothing of the whole thing. I did not think my wife would have any interest but if anything, it sparks interesting conversation. So she went and it apparently really struck her as something that could really be a good opportunity. I have to admit, my very first thought was, "It's a scam and let's not get involved with this." But as she was on the phone talking to this Consultant, I thought about it. I remembered that not all that long ago I myself had tried my hand at an in-home business no other than the infamous Amway. And I can remember how much of a struggle it was for me to finally get involved after about a year or more of arguing it's legitimacy with my friend who had been working with it that whole time. And I also remember a lot of or should I say lack of support from my family. No, they weren't huge critics that were trying to make me feel bad every time I saw them, but it's the little encouragement that might seem meaningless that would have really meant a lot. Because of this and some of the conflicts that arose from it, I deemed it not to be worthy and I quit. I felt pretty weak too because I'd actually let others really influence me when it came to my own success and failure. So after getting back in that mindset, I quickly told my wife to go ahead and give it a shot if she felt it was something that would work and that she'd be good at. And so she did.

So it's been a little over 6 months now since she first signed up. So what do I think? Well, I think it's been great for her. In fact, I'm really impressed. Who knew that the girl that has never had a sales job a day in her life could actually sell and perhaps sell better than me? And sales is all I've ever done. She's also very dedicated. In fact, she hasn't missed a weekly group meeting the entire time. I can't even seem to remember to watch my favorite TV show every week. And is she selling? Well yeah, she is. Now it hasn't been a huge in flux of cash, but she's been pretty steadily making sales and moving inventory. She also seems to be working very hard at getting people to take a look at the opportunity itself, which is something I always struggled with regarding Amway.

So is my wife's new found sales skills what I'm writing about today. No, it's not. But my real urk about this whole experience with Mary Kay has been the people that we know. Not only has it been an urk, but it's also been an amazement. What I mean by that is that the strangest people that you would never think of give you the greatest support. And the ones you thought you felt the closest to end up being the biggest disappointment.

What's the reason for this? It would be hard to say. But I suppose I can think of when I was back in Amway. Regardless of whether anyone wanted to be in Amway for the business side of it, Amway still had a pretty killer variety of products that were priced pretty good too. Mary Kay even more so. I've come to learn that they offer very highline stuff that actually seems to work. And it's priced affordably for most people compared to the other products it competes with. So regardless of whether somebody wants to go into the business of selling Mary Kay or not, there's no reason why everyone can't benefit from using the products. But it's so interesting to see how people won't even agree to a free facial to even see if the products will work for them. And this has been the frustration. Most of these friends you feel closest to seem to balk at that very idea of it. They say they already use a brand they like. But why not try this brand? After all, you tried the brand you are using now at some point and you liked it. And what if you ended up liking the Mary Kay product the same or even more? And what if it cost you the same or maybe less? Then wouldn't you rather your close friend profit from the sale of this product rather than some department store who doesn't care a lick about you? Read that last sentence again because that is the real rub here. This encapsulates the whole thing. At least I believe it does. In fact, let's type it out one more time and take a look at it again...

"Then wouldn't you rather your close friend profit from the sale of this product rather than some department store who doesn't care a lick about you?"

I really think it comes down to jealousy. Call it cliche, but I'm going to say it. Deep down, people don't want you to succeed if they haven't themselves succeeded more than you. By purchasing that Mary Kay facial scrub they feel they are in effect saying, "You knew more about this and you took the time to look into this before me and that makes you smarter than me." Now obviously people aren't verbally or even mentally saying this in their head, but what else can it possibly be? Because if it's not this, then what is it? Ponder that and chew on it for a while. And it interests me because friends of mine and my wife come to us for advice on things and they value our opinion and our knowledge when they ask for it. But turn it around and try to share with them something they didn't ask for and you are greeted with unwant and disrespect. Why is my advice meaningful when it is asked for, but meaningless when given freely. That's another one we need to highlight...

"Why is my advice meaningful when it is asked for, but meaningless when given freely."

But on the flip side, I talked of amazement. Some of the strangest people that I actually advised my wife against approaching have ended up being her biggest supporters and customers. Go figure. But this is certainly not the majority and the two groups definitely are not equal in numbers. It's much more the negative and that's why they call this "work". But I have noticed that my wife is very strong. This is something I have really grown to love in her. And I'm pretty sure when this whole things over and done, she's gonna be the last one laughing.

cliche implied :)

You Can Mutually Respect My A$?!

So I've been out of college for a little while now. I've been in the working world pushing papers now since January of 2000. So I think this makes me an expert on interoffice relations. Or at least it does to me. I won't name any names or anything, but what is it about people not respecting each other in the office. Particularly managers disrespecting thier underlings. I don't really get it. Yeah, there are your run of the mill prick wannabe power mongers. But I have also seen this spring up as behavior from perfectly nice individuals. Obviously stress plays in tot his and how well these people deal with stress, but come on!. When it occurs time and time again and people feel like they are being reprimanded for things they didn't even do, then a line has to be drawn and I'd like to draw it.

Am I a hothead? No, I don't think so. Am I coarse or selfish? Well, that might be closer to the truth. But do I respect the people I work with? Absofuckinglutley! I learned a log time ago that respect given is respect gained. Not always from the same people that are dealing with each other but it's kind of karmic in a sense. At least that's how I see it.

But what makes truly disrespectful people this way? Do they really need people to feel subservient to them? Does it make them feel powerful? Because where is the power in not being respected by the people that work under you. I'm not sure there is any real power. There is certainly a fear factor as far as your job being stripped away from you, but is there real power? I think real power comes from respect and making people feel good about being lead by you. That doesn't happen in to many companies. Kinda sad, isn't it. I guess it really is true....that it's just way easier to be an asshole than to be a real leader.

This post kinda sucked. Man, am I losing my touch? :(

Well That Sucks!

So I've been in sales for pretty much all of my adult life. I've sold clothes, cars, computers, services and even gotten involved in the grand daddy multi-level marketing Amway Corporation. So what does that say about my sales skills what I am willing to endure in order to "Be Sold"? Well just the other day my wife informed me that a woman would be coming by the house in the evening in order to present us with some type of product that she was selling. I wasn't too big on it, but my wife really just wanted to have her over so that she could view someone other than myself do thier "sales tricks" since my wife is starting to get into sales herself. I wanted to be supportive even though I was not enthused about it, so I said fine.

So this lady shows up around 5:30 in the afternoon and she has a sales partner with her. Another woman, possibly one in training. I'm thinking, "Great, it's a tag team effort." They were in thier late 40's to early 50's and they seemed nice, so I went along with it. I have to admit I had a lot of curiosity since we had no clue as to what they were peddling. So the veteran sales lady starts into her song and dance. She has this plastic bowl that she wants me to fill with cold water. So I oblige and assist her in showing us what seems to be some type of portable air feshener system that basically looked like an oversized coffee pot with a blow dryer motor attached to it. She then shows us how quickly it can clean and scent the air in the room to mask odors or whatever else is stinking up your home. It was kind of neat, but it looked cheap and poorly engineered. This couldn't be what she had come to sell to us. If it was then I feel very sorry for her career path that she's taken. But then she asks us if we would like a free one of these little doohickey's and if so, then all we would need to do is provide her with the names and numbers of about 8 of our friends. I don't really like giving out people's contact info, but again, I was trying to roll with this just to see where it went. So we did, and while we had done this, the two ladies had gotten a larger item from thier car and brought it into our living room. Ahhh, now this is what they must really be selling.

So the lady starts talking about quality of air and all the dust and crap that builds up but never really can get cleaned inside your home since it doesn't rain in the house. And then she pulls out what appears to be a giant version of the coffee pot blow dryer and now I'm starting to see where this is going. I tell, her, "So you're selling home air purifiers." She agrees that she is, and the demo kept on from there. So she explains how this machine is filled with water and that it has this powerful motor that will cycle all your home's air through the water, removing all the dust and germs, and then blowing it all back out through a hepa-filter exhaust. Hey, it looked interesting and that motor sounded like a jet turbine when she cranked it to full speed. Scared the shit out of the cat. So now she's got my attention since I like gadgets and also have a pretty serious allergy to cat dander. But I also sense that this product does more then she's letting on. I wonder what it could be.

Well, I start to think about the next logical step, which is what does it matter to clean the air when the carpets, floor, and furniture are covered in the same filth. That's when she adds a base with castors, and enough vacuum attachments to clean any type of surface you can think of. Now she's really got my attention. I'm thinking, "So this thing is an air purifier and a fucking vacuum cleaner too?" It seemed strange at first, but then made quite a bit of sense. In fact, you could even hook these other attachments up to the exhaust port and use the machine as a leaf blower or raft inflator. It was pretty damn versatile. But now I'm thinking to myself, well I know there are some regular old vacuums that don't have all these other functions and they go for as much as $700. So I actually blurted out as a complete guess, "Now you're gonna tell me this thing is two grand." And guess what? She turns to the pricing page and I shit you not, the thing was two fucking thousand dollars. In fact, it was retail $2,500, but if we bought today, then we could get it for just under the $2,000 price tag.

I couldn't beleive it, but at the same time, I was rationalizing it. I could tell my wife wanted it, and I did really like it, but $2,000? That seemed crazy. Then comes the worksheet to make it make sense. She starts having me guessitmate what I will payout in cost for new vacuums, bags, cleaners, and full on carpet cleanings in 20 years. We came up with about $10,500. Hard to beleive, but the numbers did seem right. She then said these machines are built to last 15-20 years. And since there are no bags used, then really the cost over the same time period is more like 25-40% that of the normal vacuums. And this vacuum actually cleans as opposed to vacuums that end up just spitting the small stuff back out thier exhausts because the paper bags are permeable. And I shit you not, this lady vacuumed a small 3x4ft swath on our 7 month old rug and then showed us the water after that 20 seconds of usage. It looked like there was a dead animal in the bucket.

So guess what, we bought the fuckin thing. The ladies left and there it was in our living room. The $2,000 vacuum cleaner, if there is such a thing. But here's the strange thing. We were using the new vacuum as an air purifier inthe bedroom and there was a small cat mess to clean up in the guest bathroom. So I wanted to use our old vacuum to clean it up just because it seemed more convenient then getting the new uber-vac out of the bedroom. I openned the closet door and it wasn't there. I looked in the guest bedroom. It wasn't there. So now I'm thinking, "Where in the hell is the old vacuum?" I mean, our house isn't that big and we only have like two closets that it can even fit in and it wasn't in either of them. So where was it? My wife was looking with me, and she said, "Did they take our old vacuum with them? I thought about it and even though it seemed rediculous, it was the only explanation. I mean, vacuum's don't spontaneously combust into thin air.

Needless to say, this made me a little uneasy about the whole purchase. I mean, they just sold me a $2,000 vacuum. So why would they need to take my old one? I might want to sell that on EBay to recoup some of the expense of the new unit. After all, the new vac is about 15 times more cost than the current vac were using. So now I'm thinking, I'm not sure this vac is worth $2,000 and I want my old vac back too. Not because it was better, but because it was mine for crying out loud. It had been stolen from my homeas far asl I was concerned.

So anyway, with anything that is sold by direct marketing in your home, you have 3 days to rescind the contract. So that's what we did. I mailed in the form and the lady is supposed to pick up the unit tonight or tomorrow and give us back our old vac.

But let me add this. We did really like the vac and the house does seem much cleaner since we have used it as both the vac and air purifier. So I looked on Ebay and guess what? There are wholesale vacuum stores that have bought unsold new remaining inventory of these from out of business sales people. And they are selling them for $999-$1,199 which is about 45-50% less then buying it from the actual companies own salespeople. We'll be buying ours as soon as the current one is picked up in the next few days.

Check out the Rexair Rainbow Air Purifier and Wet-Vacuum system at...
Rexair Vacuum's

Actually Becoming Handy

So I haven't posted in a while. What a lazy shit I must be. But I guess nobody is probably reading my blog, so in the end, it really doesn't matter. I've actually been trying to think of things to blog about and nothing has really taken me by storm. Doesn't that suck when life is so utterly content? I mean, the struggle really is the interesting part of it all and my struggle seems to be ever fading away. I better not say that too loud, somebody might hear me and then start to make my life difficult just out of spite.

I did do a couple of home improvement projects which I must say turned out rather well. Me and the wife painted the master bathroom, and although the color is a little brighter than we wanted, we were very pleased with our taping and painting skills. I also completed my first ever tiling project. I tiled the front porch of my house with natural slate tiles. I must say it turned out really nicely. Wasn't that hard either, only time consuming since I did it all by my lonesome.

But with the combination of these two tasks, I now have the confidence I need to attack just about any home project i can probably think of. Next will be applying those same tiling skills on the two bathrooms. This will be a little more difficult as I will be doing the tile in more of a pattern as opposed to a straight grid. Also, I'll need to mount backer board which is something I didn't have to do on the front porch since that was concrete already.

But regardless, I'm actually impressed with myself and I look forward to these projects. It's very true what they say about doing these things yourself as opposed to hiring the job out. You take much more pride in it and you enjoy it in ways you never thought possible. I suppose this could spellthe end of the Hart family tradition of never doing anything yourself when there is someone you can pay to do it for you. Oh well, time for a change in family direction.


Click here for more of my porch pics

Buying into Service

So I've been in sales my whole life. I have dealt with just about every type of customer you can think of. So when I turn it around on myself, what type of customer do I look like? I'm currently project manager on a side project at work where I am assisting and doing pretty much all the research on rennovating our office. Part of that job is finding cubicle workspaces that will fill our new open office environment. The short of this story is that there are tons of company's that can put workspaces together for us and it would seem that almost all of the salespeople I've dealt with are very professional and have been getting me all the info I have been needing.

Anyway, I was pretty set on this one provider and I've done everything to confirm that he would be getting the sale besides actually giving him the actual committment. Then another provider pops in my front door and throws out a proposal for a much nicer looking cubicle setup for pretty much the same cost as my previous quote from the original vendor.

So now I'm at a crossroads. I feel like the original vendor has worked very hard to put a setup together for me. However, the cubicles he's promoting are refurbished older models that look a bit dated, but I'm sure are still pretty nice. The new vendor has kind of jumped into the spotlight on his first try at layout and price and I really love the look of this modern cubicle. So this means I probably will have to tell the original vendor that has worked so hard that I can't do his option. I feel bad, but at the same time it's important that we get what we need and what is right for the space. After all, we have to live with it everyday we come to work.

I just know I hate it when people make me do a ton of work like this and then lose out to someone at the last minute. I guess it's just all part of the sales game and nobody should take it personally. I will tell the guy over the phone that we aren't going to choose them, and that's a lot more respectful than what I get from a lot of prospective clients of my own.