Humax Freeview PVR faults: apology and upgrade incoming!

Humax Freeview PVR faults: apology and upgrade incoming!: "

Humax has issued an apology and promised a software upgrade after owners of older Humax Freeview PVRs were plagued with faults including freezing and slow performance. Read on to find out if your Humax Freeview PVR is due for a fix.

Humax accepts that owners of several of its Freeview PVR models (the Humax PVR-9150T, Humax PVR-9300T and Humax PVR-9200T) have had problems for “several months”. Though its technical team has been working on a fix, it claims the issues are so complex that it has taken longer than expected.

Humax says: “Significant performance issues became particularly apparent through the digital switchover.” Thankfully if your Humax Freeview PVR has been struggling, a fix is now on the way. Humax says it will be delivering an automatic over-the-air software upgrade in the next fews weeks and will announce it on its website.

Has your Humax Freeview PVR been giving your trouble? Let us know what problems you’ve been having and if you’re happy with the solution Humax has offered.

Out now | £various | Humax

Related posts:

1. Humax makes Freeview retune pledge
2. Humax: All our boxes are fixed for Freeview
3. Freeview: No apology over re-tune trauma

Canon AE-1 Program SLR gets a digital retrofit

Canon AE-1 Program SLR gets a digital retrofit: "

A classic SLR film camera gutted and given a digital upgrade -- blasphemy? Maybe, but there's no denying that this mod by Diego Monge is plenty impressive. He started out with a Canon AE-1 Program SLR, and apparently simply stuffed the guts of a compact digital camera of some sort inside, resulting in what he calls the AE-1 Program Digital -- a 9-megapixel camera complete with image stabilization, a functional flash, and 4GB of memory (non-removable, it seems). Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any details on the build process, let alone a how-to, but you can at least get a glimpse of it in action in the video after the break.

Continue reading Canon AE-1 Program SLR gets a digital retrofit

Canon AE-1 Program SLR gets a digital retrofit originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cooped Up

Cooped Up: "

I spent a good portion of yesterday researching chickens. I’m fascinated by the idea of keeping chickens in the backyard for eggs! I don’t know if it’s right for us, but I had a lot of fun looking at chicken coops and imagining having one out back.

1. Chicken Crib


2. Eglu Cube


3. Modern Chicken Coop


4. The Saltbox Coop


5. Eglu Go


6. Portable Chicken Coop

Design*Sponge recently wrote about keeping chickens, and Apartment Therapy wrote about the subject a couple of years ago. As people are becoming more aware of their food sources and sustainable living (both things I’m working on), it seems chicken keeping is making a big comeback. I haven’t met anyone keeping them in an urban (or suburban) setting, though it seems they’re out there! Do you or any of your neighbors have chickens?

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You may also like these related posts from Making it Lovely:

1. Thinking About Food


2. Window Treatments


3. Food Poisoning?

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© 2010, published by Making it Lovely as Cooped Up | 110 comments

"

Sky Anytime+ VOD service incoming

Sky Anytime+ VOD service incoming: "

Sky Anytime+ will launch later this year and finally bring a true VOD service to Sky+ HD customers who’ve previously had to make do with Sky Anytime shovelling its choice of programmes onto their PVR over night. Looks like Virgin Media has suddenly got a serious on demand TV rival…

Sky Anytime+ VOD will make use of the unused ethernet port lurking at the back of your Sky+ HD box and allow you to choose and download shows to the hard drive when you want them. Sky has confirmed that all current Sky+ HD boxes are ready for the Sky Anytime+ on demand TV service.

Virgin Media already has a massive VOD TV service operating through its cable network. Up until now Sky has not been able to deliver true on demand TV to its satellite customers. With Sky Anytime+, it’ll no longer have to take up space on the Sky+ HD box hard drive with shows that you might not actually want to watch.

Sky’s also rapidly bringing its channels to other hardware with Sky Player integration included in set top boxes from firms like 3View and Humax and on Xbox 360.

Will Sky Anytime+ change the way you use your Sky+ HD box? And if you’re not a Sky subscriber is the arrival of a real on demand TV service enough to lure you in?

Due TBC | £varies | Sky

Related posts:

1. Sky re-badges Anytime as Sky Player, adds live TV
2. Virgin Media announces PictureBox on demand movie service
3. Mobile Web Server scrapped: new Nokia service incoming?

"

Make the Most of Your Multiple Monitors in Windows 7 [Multiple Monitors]

Make the Most of Your Multiple Monitors in Windows 7 [Multiple Monitors]: "

The price of extra monitors has fallen steadily over the years, quality has risen, and Windows 7 is more multi-monitor friendly than any previous edition of Windows. Here's how to make the most of your multi-monitor setup in Windows 7. More »

"

Student's Windows-based media center brings our own slacker childhoods into perspective

Student's Windows-based media center brings our own slacker childhoods into perspective: "

When Andrew Macdonald was asked to design a product for a high school class, he went above and beyond the call of duty -- not only did he dream up a piece of kick-ass kit, but he took the next step and made it reality. Taking cues from his Xbox (and doing away with the front-facing lights that drive him to distraction on his current DVR) this bad boy is passively cooled, features the usual HTPC connections (HDMI, optical and coax S/PDIF, eSATA, and USB) as well as 802.11n WiFi and a hot-swappable drive bay. Under the hood, one finds a 1.6GHz Atom 330 with NVIDIA ION graphics, 4GB memory, and the OS (a custom Windows XP hack running Boxee Beta) runs on its own internal flash drive. Things have certainly changed since we were in school, when our home entertainment experience usually amounted to taping Rebel High off of USA Up All Night. Check out the gallery and video (after the break) to see this thing in all its glory.

Gallery: Watchbox media center by Andrew Macdonald

Continue reading Student's Windows-based media center brings our own slacker childhoods into perspective

Student's Windows-based media center brings our own slacker childhoods into perspective originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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"

Apple to drop support for 1st gen iPhone

Apple to drop support for 1st gen iPhone: "

Filed under: iPhone

You could see the writing on the wall when Apple announced iPhone OS 4. Apple said most of the features will run on the iPhone 3G, and all would run on the iPhone 3GS. At no point did they mention the first generation iPhone. Steve Jobs has now confirmed what many assumed.



MacStories has published an email a reader sent to Jobs asking if Apple will supply updates to the first gen iPhone in the future. Steve's answer? 'Sorry, no.' So unless Apple releases another minor point upgrade to iPhone OS 3 before OS 4's release, original iPhone owners can expect to be running iPhone OS 3.1.3 for as long as they keep the device.

TUAWApple to drop support for 1st gen iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 12 Apr 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments"

blooming onion

blooming onion: "I love onions. Onions are good in a salad, a sammie,
sautéed, raw and especially barbequed. Recently, I learned
of a new way to enjoy this tear-jerking underground veggie: deep fried.
This tasty treat is a great snack to share next time you have guests,
and the variety of spices and dips tha...
By: mikeasaurus

Continue Reading »"

Easy watering strawberry planter

Easy watering strawberry planter: "
By: tim_n

Continue Reading »"

Windows Home Server Vail Public Preview

Windows Home Server Vail Public Preview: "

Today Microsoft have released a public preview release of the next version of Windows Home Server, codenamed Vail.

A few months ago an internal build of Vail, that was only available to a select few, including us WHS MVPs, got released into the wild. Well this is the “official” release. And even better for us that means we can now talk about it and we are not under that part of the NDA anymore!

Here are some of the key pointers for this release:

Windows Server “Vail” server software is a 64-bit only operating system.

System Requirements:

· 1.4 GHz x64 processor.

· 1 GB RAM

· At least one 160 GB hard drive.

Vail is based on Windows Server 2008 R2.

So, you probably want to know how to get it then, don’t you?

Well you will need to get it from Microsoft Connect, which you can do so from here: https://connect.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer

Note that it may take a little while for the download to show up on Connect so keep checking.

If you want to post your questions to the official Microsoft Vail forum, you can do so here:

http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/whsvailbeta/threads

It is important to note that this is not a Beta release, it is a Technical Preview release. The difference being is that technical preview releases are aimed at people with a certain level of IT knowledge and experience, and that the build is not complete, features may be missing, things may not work as expected, etc.

So, if you are in any doubt, do not use it! And whatever you do, do not use it as your production Windows Home Server box!

Also, and I cannot stress this enough, READ THE MANUAL! There are literally pages and pages of known issues that you should be aware of with this build. And remember, before you think that maybe Microsoft shouldn’t have released this as it looks like it is not fit for primetime, it is a technical preview and not a beta!

Let us know your thoughts on Vail, and watch this space for Vail articles

"

Create a Dummy Account to Get Around App Store Restrictions [ITunes]

Create a Dummy Account to Get Around App Store Restrictions [ITunes]: "

There are some iPhone/iPod/iPad apps that don't want to make themselves available on a global scale. To jump around this weird blockade, the Digital Inspiration blog recommends creating a dummy account with a different email address to install free applications. More »

Turn Live SkyDrive into a 25GB Dropbox-Style Sync Space [Online File Storage]

Turn Live SkyDrive into a 25GB Dropbox-Style Sync Space [Online File Storage]: "

Microsoft's SkyDrive offers an eye-opening 25GB of free space to everyone—provided you want to use Microsoft's own products to upload to it. The Download Squad blog shows how to open up SkyDrive using an Office 2010 trial copy. More »

"

Top 10 Hard Drive Upgrades and Fixes [Lifehacker Top 10]

Top 10 Hard Drive Upgrades and Fixes [Lifehacker Top 10]: "

You should never feel like your hard drive is holding out on you. Anyone should be able to back up, recover files, boot multiple systems, upgrade, or otherwise improve their storage space. These tips explain the possibilities and procedures. More »

Make Your Own Homemade Snickers Bars [Baking]

Make Your Own Homemade Snickers Bars [Baking]: "

Up this week in the making popular snack food at home category is the ever-famous, hunger-squashing Snickers bar. Not only does this recipe save you money by making them yourself, it makes enough for some serious long-term storage. More »

OMG! Android Running On The iPhone (No, Seriously)

OMG! Android Running On The iPhone (No, Seriously): "

Today has just been unreal! Three new Dell Android phones leaked within a couple of hours of each other, and now we’re given a treat that we never thought we’d see: Android has been ported to the iPhone. I came across this link thanks to fabled Android ROM developer Cyanogen, who simply pasted the URL to the blog posting in a tweet on his Twitter account.

The catch is that this only works on 2G iPhones for now, but this is a huge break through in Android development! Everything isn’t smooth, and not everything works (some things will need special drivers) but WiFi is confirmed to be working, and it seems functional enough to make this a notable achievement for the developer who managed to scrap this together. The developer has stated that a port to the 3G should be fairly easy, and while a 3GS port would require a bit more work, it should be doable as well.

Rob has always told me “we need someone manning the ship even in the late hours. What if the iDroid with Android 3.0 gets announced?”. Turns out, he was right (partially, anyway) and I’m just stoked to see that this is even possible. What about you guys? Do you want to see continued development for Android’s iPhone 2G port? Would you try this out on your own old iPhone (he provides detailed instructions on his blog)?

"