• 
  

• Recently Updated

  • dsu | Mike
  • Shar
  • sonja | johnson
  • Dan was too short for wordpress.
  • andy's place...

• Blogroll

  • Andy Ogan
  • Carrie Kehn
  • Holli Rausch
  • Jeff Gabhart
  • Jeff Vonasek
  • lawlRedneck
  • Miles Rausch
  • Seth Larson
  • Sonja Johnson
  • ZombieFoodDan

• dootdoot

  • dootdoot
  • dootdoot | Chat
  • dootdoot | Forums
  • dootdoot | Photos

• Links

  • Dakota State University
  • Media Portal / TV Server
  • Windows Home Server

This week our cable box crapped out on us. Out of no where the DVR functionality stopped working. If you tried to go to the DVR page, you would get an error message, and we were unable to record or view any previous recordings.

While poking through the menu, I clicked DVR Setup. This was apparently a mistake as the cable box then locked up, made a bad sound and turned off. I powered the cable box back on, and from that point forward we were unable to get a picture to produce on the screen.

Apathy got the best of us this week, but this afternoon we stopped at the Midco Customer Service building and finally swapped our cable/dvr box for a new one. It looks like we went from a DCT6412 to a DCH3416.

Not really much of an upgrade, but I believe it does come with a slightly larger hard drive. The real plus is just being able to have access to cable to throw on as background noise.

It is hard to believe I did not buy a single new hard drive in 2011. The last hard drives I purchased was a set of two 2TB Hitachi 7K2000‘s around Christmas 2010.

I actually have been in need for awhile, but the hard drive shortage that started around October of 2011 had put a cost-prohibitive road block on my storage needs. To date the internal Hitachi 2TB HDD that I would normally buy is still inflated to nearly double the price ($199 vs $104).

This led me to start looking for other alternatives. One option I found was looking at USB External HDD’s that for some reason seem to be unimpacted by this price jump. My research seemed to state that you have a decent chance of getting one of the same model drives that I want anyway.

I took a chance on the Hitachi 2TB XL2000 ($109).

Fortunately for me, this paid off. I connected the drive and checked what was inside of the enclosure. To my surprise it was the EXACT same model as all of my other Hitachi 2TB drives that have been performing perfectly.

I am going to give the drive  a couple of days of use while running some tests. If everything goes well, I will be cracking open the external case and installing the drive as another internal drive.

This should actually work out well, as my last spot is currently filled with a temporary 1TB drive which I should (hopefully) be able to re-use the external case for and continue to use.

Over the weekend I stopped at the local VW/Audi dealership and test drove a brand new 2012 Volkswagen GLI.

I’m very new to the idea of a car that’s not at least 4 years old at purchase time, but this car is pretty damn impressive.

I originally was looking for a used 2008-2009 Audi A4, but for roughly the same amount of money, I can get a 2010-2011 VW. So I figured it was at least worth a look.

Read more

older »