Gadgets

I got an iPod nano the first weekend they came out, it coincided perfectly with my birthday so who was I to tempt fate! I’ve been very happy with it ever since. You can't beat the price for a flash based mp3 player that holds 4GB. However it has gotten pretty badly scratched, and I haven’t been too hard on it. This isn't critical for me since I care more about functionality than looks, but it is still a bummer. 

After reading through many similar complaints, I came accross this great post from Todd Dailey's blog - Restore your iPod nano to new condition with a $4 can of Brasso. I am shocked that something like this would actually work but he includes some pretty convincing screenshots. I figure it is worth a shot, but I don't plan on going the 'ziplock baggy route'..

I am still holding out on starting my home brew PVR. Maybe it is because there isn't anything worth recording lately but that should change pretty soon when ABC's Lost returns next month..

Matthew Gast has a follow up article on his attempts to build a MythTV box.

I have been getting more and more motivated to build my own PVR lately despite the fact that I already own two Series 2 Tivos. I guess a big motivating factor is that I want something that can do HDTV instead of just standard definition television. 

I personally do not have a High Definition television but I have had a chance to see plenty of shows in high def from my computer and I am impressed! Anyway, here are two new resources that can be valuable additions to the normal places for information (like http://mythtv.org and various discussion boards).

The first is a 15 minute video from former TechTV host Kevin Rose on his new site called Systm. Their second episode is somewhat of a HOWTO for building your own MythBox.

The second resource is an O'Reilly article called "Building My MythTV Box, Part 1: Hardware" that has very sound advice and does a great job of making some of the tough decisions on what to use for your HTPC.