=============
INTRO
=============

So, it would be so super cool to have Netflix on our TV, but I will not
pay for any more devices. I looked into Netflix on the Ipod Touch/Iphone; however, Netflix says not yet. So, what I've been doing is using my laptop to
plug into my TV (PC to VGA converter box $30) and my HDTV projector (via VGA).
Perfect setup and we can stream Netflix anywhere with the portability of a laptop; however, now that I'm
switching jobs, I"m losing my laptop and have been seeking alternative
solutions to stream Netflix into our living room without any additional costs. This is where our Nintendo Wii comes in with the free
Internet Channel.

=============
PLAYON.TV
=============

Wow....it's amazing what you find if you just look! First I found Orb (a free media server for your home) and now PlayOn.

So, on a search to watch Netflix on my Nintendo Wii**, I found PlayOn.tv. This is software you install on a computer at home, leave this computer turned on with the PlayOn software running, and...voila...my Wii via the Internet Channel/WIFI can now access Hulu, Netflix Watch Instantly, ESPN, and others. PlayOn only works with certain devices; however, they are working on adding Iphone & Touch to their list of compatible devices (http://www.playon.tv/node/774). Also, HULU is presently working on an Iphone/Touch app, too.

PlayOn is a one-time $40 cost, but they have a 14-day FREE trial. Very affordable! Of course, I stayed up late last night trying out this cool software. Just couldn't go to bed until I knew if this worked with my Wii. I can't believe how easy it was! I was watching Netflix from my Wii in 10 minutes with PERFECT stream! The amazing thing is that I also use ORB now and the stream to the Wii is slightly choppy. I'm assuming it's due to my 3mbps slow DSL internet connection. This week we're finally getting 15mbps FIOS, so it'll be so interesting to test if this improves my Orb stream. Strange thing is that Orb streams perfectly to my Ipod Touch via the Orb Free app (doesn't work with my Safari browser).

PlayOn.tv is a perfect solution for our home, since we don't (and never will) pay for cable or satellite to watch TV. In our house we have Free to Air (FTA) and Over-the-Air (OTA). We get HDTV with OTA for free. The kids only watch PBS, and since we have 6 PBS local channels, we're all set! With FTA, OTA, Netflix, Justin.tv, Site4movie.com, and Freefullmovies.net, I see no reason to pay for TV - ever!

Here are some free PlayOn plugins with channels like Nick Jr:

* playonplugins.com
* playonscripts.com
* playonlabs.net

I hope this helps you start watching internet tv on your regular TV, too!

=============
PlayOn vs ORB
=============

The difference between PlayOn and Orb seems to be...

PlayOn
------------
- Only works with approved devices like Wii, DNLA tvs, etc.
- Supports internet tv only
- Provides API for developers to develop plug-ins

Orb
------------
- Can't connect to Netflix or Hulu
- Has a social media aspect - share videos, pics, music with friends
- Any device with a web browser and internet access can view videos
- Need to build your own library or setup your own live stream
- Is accessible with IPHONE and TOUCH (free and paid versions)
- Is Free

I think these two technologies compliment each other and are both great to have and were built for different purposes. Orb is a home media server and PlayOn is a solution to watch internet tv on your regular tv or game console. Try them both!

Signing Off,
Vivian
ViSO Tech

=============
REFERENCES
=============
www.playon.tv
www.orb.com

** NOTE: Netflix is releasing their product for WII this spring of 2010. This will be FREE for all Netflix customer who have access to their Watch Instantly.

Today, I tried to install the Orb media server on my computer. I found orb on a search for WII streaming.

http://orb.com/download_orb

I had no issues downloading the 24mb Orb20SetupUs.exe file. However, I did have an issue installing the software.

After the the EULA and install path screens, I continually received a message saying "previous version of orb should be uninstalled". Baffled, I looked at my installed programs in Windows XP and didn't see Orb - of course. Especially, since today was the first time I had even heard of Orb.

After a few times of running the exe file, I finally took a good look at the install path, which said something like:

C:\Program Files\Kodak\Digital Display\OrbKodakLauncher

This immediately grabbed my attention, since I have a WIFI Kodak frame and run the Kodak Easy Share software to share my PC files with my WIFI frame. I browsed the path above and saw a ton of dll files in this Koda Orb folder. It immediately struck me...this ORB software is the same software that Kodak uses to share media files with PC and frame - of course!

So out of curiosity, I uninstalled my Kodak Easy Share software and re-ran the Orb software...VOILA...it installed! I took a look and found that the Kodak uninstall removed the folder path above.

Orb installed itself in the C:\Program Files\Orb Networks\Orb folder.

The really interesting fact is that I googled this problem and went on ORB's website and could not find a reference to my install error or the Kodak and Orb association.

What I don't know is what will happen if I try to reinstall Kodak Easy Share. I'll give it a shot and update this blog entry.

I hope this helps you, too!

Signing Off,
ViSO Tech

This worked well with my custom Geo1[] Geo[2] objects:


1. // Add an item to the end of an existing array
2. string[] ar1 = new string[] {"I", "Like", "To"}
3.
4. // create a temporary array with an extra slot
5. // at the end
6. string[] ar2 = new string[ar1.Length + 1];
7.
8. // add the contents of the ar1 to ar2
9. // at position 0
10. ar1.CopyTo(ar2, 0);
11.
12. // add the desired value
13. ar2.SetValue("Code.", ar1.Length);
14.
15. // overwrite ar1 with ar2 and voila!
16. // the contents of ar1 should now be {"I", "Like", "To", "Code."}
17. ar1 = ar2;

Okay I have an FTA receiver at home with a small dish an can only get certain channels. It works but I need to buy a rotating motor to have access to other satellites. This is still in the works.

So, today looking up info on FTA I saw the article below. It's my understanding that this would be perfect for someone like me to get FREE channels via satellite by ONLY pointing to ONE satellite instead of rotating the dish and pointing to numerous ones. Downfall so far...no PBS :( Hopefully, they'll become the kids channel.The proposed orbital position for our satellite will be between 80 and 100 degrees west.

http://freedbs.org/Channels.html

"FTA channels in the clear and Ad. supported are in the making with
former NASA engineer" Ray's Uncle" and others that are in the
television broadcasting line of work. Would start out with 20 channels
including a News channel , Mountain Music channel, Nature channel ,War
movie channel , And others.

Would include a guide that would work on most FTA's . Future channel
capacity could be as high as 200 channels. All channels would be in the
clear except a PPv movie and fight channel that would work with a
access card that plugs in the front of Your FTA receiver. Access cards
would be on a yearly fee and available from FTA dealers.

A larger Dish
would be required 22-32 inch for good reception.

FREEDBS.Org is the site name . Hope that helps."

http://www.ftabins.net/showthread.php?t=133227&page=1

This morning I decided to research Splenda, since I have about 4 packets per week. Every time I do reach for the splenda, I get this urge to put it back but rarely do.

I discovered that Splenda (4) is just as bad as aspartame, since it is Sucrose. They say any fake sugar is super bad for you. I did know this but haven't thought about it since the last time I was on the Atkins diet.

The funny thing is that I read some posts online with people knocking down fake sure but saying table sugar was ok. Of course I know this is incorrect and wanted to research this insane logic to obtain proof for future reference.

Since the swine flu vaccines controversy, I have grown to trust Dr. Mercola's articles. He has discussed sugar as an enemy and its toll on our immune systems.

"Refined sugar has been found to be far more addictive than cocaine... Similar to drug or alcohol addiction, if you are addicted to sugar then total abstinence is required." (1)

"Limiting sugar is critical to your optimal health. Eating refined sugar weakens your immune system and promotes yeast overgrowth, both of which are contributing factors to the number one killer: cancer." (1)

Another site (2) confirmed what Mercola said...

"So when you eat sugar, think of your immune system slowing down to a crawl."

"The health dangers which ingesting sugar on an habitual basis creates are certain. Simple sugars have been observed to aggravate asthma, move mood swings, provoke personality changes, muster mental illness, nourish nervous disorders, deliver diabetes, hurry heart disease, grow gallstones, hasten hypertension, and add arthritis."

Really, according to all I read (and Dr. Atkins) we should eat natural unrefined sugar such as Stevia (3) and avoid refined sugars and the natural sweeteners listed below.

* Anything sweetened with fruit juice
* Beet sugar
* Brown rice syrup
* Cane sugar
* Corn sugar
* Corn syrup
* Date sugar
* Dextrose
* Fructose
* Honey
* Lactose
* Maltodextrin
* Maple syrup
* Molasses
* Ice milk
* Succanat
* Sucrose
* White grape juice

Hope this helps someone else begin to think about staying away from table (refined) sugars.

Signing Off,
Vivian
ViSO Tech

--------------------------------

RESOURCES:

1. www.mercola.com/nutritionplan/advanced_carbs.htm
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splenda

Today, I decided to create a mobile version of my Karaoke application.

All went well. Followed this instructions on this page:

http://blogs.msdn.com/webdevtools/archive/2007/09/17/tip-trick-asp-net-mobile-development-with-visual-studio-2008.aspx

But then when I hit the default.aspx page of my site (mobile/default.aspx)...I received the following error:

Unable to cast object of type
'System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingAuthenticationServiceSection' to type
'System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingAuthenticationServiceSection'.

The rest of the application works perfectly, just this default.aspx page is the problem. Played around with the web.config file but still no luck. I did notice I had multiple web.config files in my route directly. So I renamed them all, so I only had one web.config file...this didn't help.

This is only an issue when I publish my application to GoDaddy.com. All works perfectly on my local machine. I'm sure there's a setting I'm mssing or something. The system.web.mobile file I'm using is a 2.0.0.0 version and I'm running a 3.5 app, so maybe that's it? I added the following lines to my web.config and still an issue :(

assemblybinding section:






assembly section:

Today, I received a fax at work via my email client - Outlook. The fax comes in as a TIFF image and Outlook displays multiple images with no problem. So, when I saved it to my desktop and opened it with Adobe CS4, Picassa, and other pic apps, I could only see the first image.

So, I right clicked the TIFF file and looked carefully at my options, that's when I saw Windows Photo Gallery. I selected it and it displayed my first image with arrows at the bottom of the screen to scroll through my other images. Voila!

So, to open TIFF with multiple images, use Windows Photo Gallery.

Hope this helps someone else!

ViSO Tech

Found this article to see if I could confirm the feeling that I had about healthcare and IT.

I'm moving away from the educational industry and back into healthcare (specifically EMRs). Obviously, the right move. Unless, something changes in the industry, I don't see myself (as a Software Engineer) leaving it again!

"The healthcare information technology (HIT) software market is poised for dramatic growth. The healthcare information technology (HIT) software market is poised
for dramatic growth. Drivers include built up demand for upgrades in
legacy systems that have been neglected for years, government
incentives for action in implementing an electronic medical record
(EMR) system (and penalties for non action)..."


http://www.b-eye-network.com/view/11085

Yipee!
Vivian

I saw a posting regarding the Heroes tv show, which I used to watch.How awesome...they, too, use Agile! Tim Kring is the creator.http://www.avclub.com/articles/tim-kring,37975/AVC: If everyone’s focused on their own storyline, how is it possible to keep track of the bigger picture of the season?TK: What we do is break the stories one at a time, then we work in what’s called sprintsâ€"a sprint is, like, four episodes.AVC: Funny you call it a sprint, since Sprint is this huge show sponsor.TK: Well actually, it comes from “agile methodology,” whichcame out of game design. We use some of the same ideas, like usingiteration and mistakes to help you along the way. You never really knowwhere you’re goingâ€"you’re only seeing as far as your headlights all thetime, so you can keep readjusting. On a TV show, there are huge issuesthat come up that a lot of people don’t realize. Locations fallthrough, actors aren’t available, suddenly actors don’t have chemistryand you’ve banked an entire season of love story around them, etc. Youhave to be really agile. If you don’t have an actor under contract andthey get a movie, you no longer have George Takei to work with.

Great test of SQL queries.

http://www.northern.ac.uk/ncmaterials/computing%20science/db-design/quiz/10_sql/sql.htm
http://www.docnmail.com/learn/SQL.htm
http://www.w3schools.com/quiztest/quiztest.asp?qtest=SQL
http://www.sqlquiz.com/sql-quiz.php

Affordable Certifications
Get ONLINE CERTIFICATION for $9.95.
http://www.expertrating.com/certifications/sql-test.asp

$75
http://www.w3schools.com
===========================================================

Example of RIGHT JOIN (numbers 19 & 20)

Which of the following statements will
(using the Micrsoft Access SQL implementation) list all cars together
with all car owners and order the output by the owner name. Take care NOT to list any cars that do not have identified owners.

Assume that the table STUDREC is placed to the LEFT of the table CARS in the Access query design window.

Note: SREF is the key field in STUDREC (the student reference number) and OID is the "foreign key" in CARS - OID stands for Owners IDentification.

SELECT studrec.init, studrec.sname, cars.regno, cars.colour, cars.model
FROM studrec RIGHT JOIN cars ON studrec.sref = cars.oid
WHERE NOT cars.oid IS NULL
ORDER BY studrec.sname, studrec.init;