Creating a home media server, Step 1: Roku

Posted on 1.10.2012 by Sean Wijbrandus

These days, computer drive space is considered cheap, and more and more options for media are becoming digital.  Thru either digital downloads or copies of your movies, tv shows, and music, removing the disk and going to an all digital library is easier than ever.

It was specifically this goal I set out to accomplish at the end of 2011, with some spare XMas cash and a bit of technical know how.  My focus was to find a way to easily share all of my movie library across my computer network to any TV in the house.  Sadly, it wasnt quite a easy as “drag and drop”, though it turns out it isnt that much harder either.

Step 1: Roku

The first step for me at least was figuring out a way to actually display video files on my TV.  For several years now, I have used a Playstation 3 and its network and blu-ray capabilities, but been hampered either with relatively slow transfer speeds or having to find the disk when I want to watch a movie.  For the most part, I was happy with that, it just wasnt worth the extra effort.  But late in 2011, we started considering dropping Netflix and moving to Amazon Prime streaming video (thanks to the wife’s new Kindle Fire).  Unfortunately, Playstation doesn’t run an Amazon app.  My investigation led to several other limitations of the Playstation, primarily in the form of limited application options.  Don’t get me wrong, the Playstation is an excellent platform, and works very well.  It was just becoming a bit limiting for the options we wanted.

So, how to display video on a TV with multiple options for video source?  In steps Roku, a small, inexpensive little box that plugs into the TV with a simple HDMI cable, and to the network with wireless.  Depending on the model, it can transmit either 720p or 1080p video, though you are of course limited by your network bandwidth.  In our case, we opted for the Roku 2 XD model, not because I wanted 1080p video now, but because I wanted the potential option in the future.

Plug it in, configure your network, and setup your free user account, and suddenly you have a long list of new applications, including both Amazon Prime and Netflix.  There are of course many pay channels as well, but for my purposes, I was trying to cut costs, so I have ignored all of those.

Netflix streaming worked great, a few test movies had no issues at all, and if anything, the interface was as good if not better than on the Playstation.

Roku : Roku 2 XD, $79.99 as of 1/10/2012

Categories: Media Server | Leave a comment

Expanded Tiger Den

Posted on 9.19.2011 by Sean Wijbrandus

So with George’s active cub scout den, and my involvement as Den Leader, we have been looking to add a few more kids to the fairly small crowd.  2 kids just didnt seem right for the activity.  However, after some healthy recruiting over the last month or two, tonight was our first den meeting with the new members, bringing our to crew to 7 kids.  A very healthy and respectable number, and one with which we can have a lot of fun and activities with.

Next weekend, we start with a trip to Carriage Hill Farms, for their annual Country Fair and for the first of many Go-See-It activities for badges and beads.  It will be our first big group outing, so hopefully everything will go smoothly.  Since Val will be out of town with her parents, it will be just myself, George and Ben, and the rest of the cub scouts and parents.

Following that outing, we are signed up to sell popcorn at Kroger’s for two hours.  If you havent had a chance to buy Cub Scout popcorn yet this year, that would be a good time to come out and say high and stock up on the corn.

Categories: Cub Scouts | Leave a comment

New (and updated) Tools

Posted on 9.17.2011 by Sean Wijbrandus

I finally got around to digging into the code behind my treasure generator, and corrected the ongoing bug with some weapons.  Due to a coding error, I had a number of higher level items that were coming up with negligable prices (+4 swords for 322 gp and such).  A bit of searching, and I discovered that I had forgotten to edit a single database lookup, following a cut and paste.  It should now be working much more reliably.

Separately, I spent a bit of time, and re-wrote a lot of the subroutines to create a tool for the generation of starting character magic items.  Our current game is plagued by two extremes for characters who start at higher than 1st level.  They either have too much money, and can buy whatever they wish from the books, making it very easy (and unrealistic) to min/max their gear and purchase the exact best combination.  Or the other extreme, in which the wealth is the same, but the available items is severely restricted to just a small sampling.  This has the opposite effect, because now the character typically has nothing that comes close to matching their character concept, and ends up with a crippled gear set for lack of anything better.

My solution was a combination of the two, allow the full budget of gear, but then generate a random and sizable option list to purchase from.  Something that would be impractical to do during a typical game now takes a couple of parameters and a click of the mouse.  Instantly, there is a random list (so the character can’t min/max), appropriate to their wealth level, and with numerous options for each category of magic item.  Although they can’t pick out ideal equipment, it could be argued that this (very) roughly simulates an actual adventuring career, encountering numerous random items

At least I feel it is a good compromise :)

Categories: Gaming, Pathfinder | Leave a comment

Rebuilding

Posted on 9.15.2011 by Sean Wijbrandus

So, I am still rebuilding pieces of my old website, following the transition.  If you are looking for the Treasure Generator tool, I still have it, but I am having to convert some of the code to adjust for the new database naming and formatting.  I should have it up soon.

Everything else should be accessible already.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Leave a comment

Side Benefit

Posted on 9.12.2011 by Sean Wijbrandus

Discovered a useful side benefit of my new theme and hosting, the website looks far better on tablets. Specifically, the formatting and zoom level is much cleaner. Not sure if it was intentional by the themes’ creators, but it certainly works well.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Leave a comment