UrbanSeven | Personal blog of Brenden Rawson

Boxee Box

October 31, 2011 by brenden | 0 comments

A while ago I blogged about my Boxee setup back in the UK running from my laptop with a HDMI out.
That solution worked well with my Dell PC back in AUS at my Dad’s house but now in the new house it’s just not practical to run the HDMI the full length of the house. It could be done but there has been something else on the market that I’ve kept my eyes on.

The Boxee Box by D-Link.

The Boxee Box

It includes a card reader slot. Not a huge feature but I've popped the camera card in there a few times so it's handy

Reverse: LAN, 2xUSB, HDMI, Optical audio, Stereo RCA audio & Power

The system doesn’t have any built-in storage but I think that’s perfect. I’ve got a massive NAS so all my content is on the network. At any rate you can always plug in a USB external HDD is your so inclined.

The remote top - Basic Play/Pause, direction and back

The remote bottom - A full QWERTY keyboard!

: It’s actually much much smaller that I expected

To get this post done quicker I’ve “borrowed” some screenshots from the web.

A different interface than that found on the self-install version. It's catered for the remote.

The new menu system

There are plenty of alternate sources for TV Shows and Movies. The majority is still US geo-blocked but it's getting better.

Plenty of output options for when I get round to the surround sound

There are a couple of stand out features that make this a seriously good device.

‘Friend’s feed which pulls in any my Facebook and Twitter accounts and builds a feed of media items shared. It’s great to be able to browse through all the various clips my friends have shared throughout the day on my big screen after work
The ‘Watch Later’ bookmarklet is useful on the same level. I can use a special bookmark in my browser which auto-detects video content on a page and puts it in my ‘Watch Later’ list so I can view them all later on the big screen
Apple AirPlay. What I haven’t mentioned (yet) is that I bought an Apple TV earlier in the year. Given I don’t purchase all my shows through Apple the only plus of Apple TV (for me) was to use the AirPlay function to play my music or content from the iPhones/iPad. Boxee does has this functionality effectively making the Apple TV a paper weight.
Full HD 1080p video. The Apple TV is only 720p
New iPad app that lets you stream videos, view friend feeds and AirPlay back selections (like a big interactive remote)
It’s based on the hugely popular XBMC software which I’ve used since my XBOX modding days

There is so much else that’s amazing about the Boxee software but I’ve probably mentioned it in my first post about the software.

I managed to pick mine up from Officeworks for $249.00 which was $40-$50 cheaper then most the other retail outlets at the time. If you’re thinking about an Apple TV, WD TV Live or any other media player you definitely need to check this out first.

This gallery contains 11 photos

Wall mount TV

September 23, 2011 by brenden | 0 comments

So now I have my own place the first “real” project was to put the LCD on the wall.

I picked up a full tilt and swivel wall mount system from www.oo.com.au for a steel, only $86 shipping included.

The TV pre-mount. Look at all that wall space just screaming for some TV action!

A screw for every hole.

More unboxing.

The TV brackets - fitting nicely.

My sparky mate Robbie - he works for pool credits

Although you can barely notice the entire wall is covered in measurement marks.

On the wall and cables through.

We hole sawed through a blank plate - works well.

The reverse of the wall is my garage so I can afford to be a little cavalier for now.Late addition: this reverse shot shows how the mount can rotate left and right by pulling out from the wall

Late addition: this reverse shot shows how the mount can rotate left and right by pulling out from the wall

This reverse shot not only shows all the plaster from my sanding but how the mount and cable holes look

: Job done. We love it. All TVs should be watched this way.

A little hint to my next post.

This gallery contains 13 photos

Our New House

September 13, 2011 by brenden | 0 comments

Last month Emily and I bought our first house together.

We’d spent months exploring different options from building to renting and after many weekends and many open houses we eventually found Lombard St, Carina.

A big draw card for us was the pool and entertaining area. This is going to be pretty much where we live in summer. Now to get some pool furniture.

The pool. Saltwater and concrete. It needs a little cosmetic work but will be just fine for this summer.

Looking back from the pool to the front yard. Quite tropical.

Em checking out the windows. Me checking out Em

A Yack. One spikey ass plant. It managed to get me every single time I walked by.

So now I own the place I chopped that sucker (and his friend) DOWN!

The front patio, yard, drive way and garage. Here we’ve got a bit of work to do but as with everything else is completely functional right now.

The drive way down to the cul-de-sac.

A little garden shed. It’s seen better days but houses the pool salt just fine.

Inside. Here is the lounge, dining room and end of the kitchen with the hall way going down to the bedrooms and bathroom.

The master bedroom – for now.

The (to be) guest room.

The spare spare room. This room has another.

The study. We may open up the wall and make this the master, time and money will tell.

A toilet. Right the laundry, left the bathroom.

The bathroom. Two sinks, a shower/bath and another toilet. Lots we can do here

The kitchen. Electric stove and oven and a dishwasher. We’ll definitely be replacing this with gas.

This post has been way overdue but Em and I have been so busy with work and generally getting settled in. I’ll keep the reno posts coming but may switch to a quicker Twitter/TwitPic based update.

May 24, 2011
by brenden
0 comments

Rackspace Cloud

I’ve just received my first invoice for my new cloud server so I thought I’d blog about my experience so far.

First some background.
When I moved back to Australia I needed to publish my portfolio website www.brendenrawson.com and made the decision to move urbanseven.com and brendenrawson.com over to some new hosting. A friend recommended a Site5 reseller account which I could configure myself – so I rounded up the sites and made the move. I’m sure Sign-Up.to saw a massive decrease in load once the DNS updated and moved traffic away.

The setup was fine, a little WHM and CPanel – just like the old days.
I also setup Pingdom to keep an eye on things. A few months past and I wasn’t spending much time on the server any more. All of a sudden Pingdom started going off, the site was down…then up…then down.
I put up with it for about a month – kept saying “if it doesn’t stop before my next billing cycle, I’m shutting it down”.
Well I got busy (lazy) and a few more months went by. Finally one night I received an email from Rackspace touting their new rackspace cloud iPhone/iPad app, I did a little research and took the plunge.

That night I setup a new account, had someone from Rackspace call me to confirm I was real and I was in. Just like that I was building my cloud server from their extensive image library. I built myself an Ubuntu LAMP box with 256Mb of RAM (as a starting comparison) and configured it the same as my local dev box. After no time I was up and running and pretty proud of myself – the server was running at 1.5 cents an hour with fairly cheap bandwidth. I now had my own virtual server with root access that I could bend as I pleased.

The first few days were great – running smoothly. However the dreaded Pingdom emails started again – the site was up and down, this time more than ever. I used the control panel’s server diagnostic tools and it appeared the server was page filing like crazy so one night while laying in bed with the RackSpace iPhone app I logged in and upgraded the RAM to 512Mb. The process took about 40mins (not sure why) but in the end the server was back up and going guns – it’s been up ever since.

It’s really handy having the web control panel, iPhone and iPad apps that enable me to check on the servers (Rename, Resize, Change Root Password, Backups, Rebuild and Delete).

Finally the invoice – after a month of running the new server my invoice was only $11.05 for the month – That’s about 30% of what I was paying for before and now I have my very own server.

It’s certainly been educational.

April 10, 2011
by brenden
3 Comments

Our new car: Ford Territory Ghia

A couple of weekends ago Emily and I finally got our new car. We’d been waiting since we got back and now the time was right. We got ourselves a 2010 demonstrator (only 4,500km) Ford Territory Ghia (top model) with all the extras. It’s very nice!

Em at the Ford dealership

18" Ford chrome rims

All Wheel Drive

The command centre

It has a 6-Speed DSG gearbox and a 4L V6 190Kw/383Nm engine to move things along

A rear view camera to see who I'm backing over

The screen isn’t touch and is a little small IMO. The new Territory which comes out next month has a pretty special system in it so I think I’ll give it a bit and then try and see if I can do a little retrofitting.

Full leather interior with memory seat settings and plenty of cup holders

Which helps when we go to the cinema

Plenty of room for well anything - including a cargo mat to protect the flooring

2 more hidden full adult rated seats - making that 7 in total

The colour is 'Edge' - a metallic dark blue/grey

On the way back from the bottle-o the other I found that the centre console fits a full 6-pack nicely - for passengers of course

So we finally have our own car – after 3 odd years of being away in the UK and not having a car it’s nice to be back behind the wheel of something nice. The Territory suits us down to the ground and I imagine she’ll get plenty of use as we spend our long weekends exploring some of our own backyard.

Hopefully this car will do better than the last.