July 9th, 2010
Long story short – I have 3 2 (1 remaining) pair of Converse All Star High Tops in Red, Navy Blue and Black and White that I bought on eBay. They were supposed to be size 11 and that’s what it says on the shoes but they actually measure out at Size 10 which is too small for me. According to the chart at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe_size#Adults EUR 45 should measure 305mm long but these are actually 295mm which is closer to EUR43/45 or Size 10.
I’m currently disputing the transaction with the seller but if someone wants to grab them it’ll save a lot of headaches all around. It’s going to cost me almost as much to send them back as what I paid for them.
These retail for $70-90 a pair normally. I’m happy to take offers around $25 a pair which is a tad under what they owe me. I can courier anywhere in Australia for $10 extra.
Email me at darren@ozcableguy.com if you can help me out.
Update: The black and white pair and the dark blue pair have sold. Just the red pair remaining.
Posted in banter | No Comments »
July 5th, 2010
Description: The CinemaTube is a basic media player that can play movies and music stored on Networked PCs or connected USB Hard Drives or flash drives on a home theatre via either RCA or HDMI cables. It also has a built-in Torrent client which allows up to 3 simultaneous Torrent downloads.
Manufacturer Specs: http://www.i-play.com.au/brite-view.php or http://www.brite-view.com/.
Warranty: 12 months
Community Support & forums: http://www.brite-viewforum.com/
Likes:
Dislikes:
- No music navigation such as the ability to search by song title, artist or genre on networked drives. Playlists can be created but only on connected hard drives, not on network drives.
Bottom Line: Simple and easy to use. The remote control performance is much better than the Xtreamer and it’s cheaper, but it doesn’t do as much stuff as the Xtreamer. This one is the best choice if you’re mainly interested in streaming movies from networked PCs to your home theatre system and don’t need it to do anything else. On that basis it’s fantastic.
Ensure the latest firmware version available from http://www.brite-view.com/support.php is installed. I did experience some choppiness in the streaming quality with the older firmware version that the unit came with which was fixed with the update.
Price: $115.50 (July Special)
Where to buy:
ZM5005HD Media Player – http://shop.ozcableguy.com/detail.asp?product=ZM5005HD.
WL-6203 Wireless USB Module – http://shop.ozcableguy.com/detail.asp?product=WL-6203
Combo – http://shop.ozcableguy.com/detail.asp?product=ZM5005HDC
Posted in new stuff | No Comments »
July 5th, 2010
Description: The XM2500 is a device that can stream media from Networked PCs and Hard Drives, connected USB Hard Drives or flash drives or an internal 2.5” SATA Hard Drive (not included) to a home theatre via either RCA or HDMI cables.
Manufacturer Specs: http://www.i-play.com.au/xtreamer.php or http://www.xtreamer.net/xtreamer/overview.aspx.
Warranty: 12 months
Community Support & forums: http://forum.xtreamer.net/
Likes:
- No media server application required on networked PCs. It can browse network shares.
- A 2.5” SATA Hard Drive can be fitted inside to use as storage. (Click here for list of compatible drives).
- You can change the skin. Click here for the skin wiki to check them out.
- It can play live internet content.
- It can be connected via Cat5 cable to your home network or alternatively wirelessly with the XM11N Wireless USB module (not included). I used the XM11N module and it performed flawlessly connected to a Draytek 2710Vn. No problems streaming big movies at all.
- When using the fast forward button the sound keeps playing without distortion or changing pitch. This was a huge amount of fun for my pre-teen kids playing music videos at faster speeds until they hyperventilated and collapsed on the floor.
Dislikes:
- No music navigation such as the ability to search by song title, artist or genre on networked drives. Hopefully the Music Jukebox feature to be added in a future firmware release will improve this situation. In the meantime you may need to break music down into smaller folders, perhaps by artist or genre, to make browsing easier. However, if you want to play a particular song, another option is to play it live from Youtube which does have a search feature.
- I’m not stoked with the remote control performance. It works ok but it seems to be very directional. I found I needed to point the remote control directly at the unit for it to work reliably.
- The onscreen keyboard used for Internet searches and entering wireless security settings is in QWERTY format rather than ABCDEF etc. It’s a personal preference I guess but I’d much rather see it in alphabetical order when scrolling and clicking letters onscreen using the remote control’s left, right, up and down buttons.
- Once or twice while I was clicking madly through screens it froze up and/or rebooted. The freezes required pulling the power out of the back or switching it off and back on at the wall because there’s no physical on/off button on the unit.
- There’s no Aussie weather or news available in the Live Internet Content. What is there is extremely cool though and it kept me amused and amazed for many hours.
Bottom Line: It’s cheap as chips and does the job well. Much better in fact than many more expensive media players I’ve tested.
Price: $139.70 (on special July ‘10)
Where to buy:
XM2500 Media Player – http://shop.ozcableguy.com/detail.asp?product=XM2500.
XM11N Wireless USB Module – http://shop.ozcableguy.com/detail.asp?product=XM11N
Combo – http://shop.ozcableguy.com/detail.asp?product=XM2500C
Posted in new stuff | No Comments »
June 29th, 2010
With 16 digital channels here in Brissie at the moment and the TV channels’ annoying habit of running over time (which is apparently illegal in some countries. Ahh… to live in those countries…) I often found I had 3 or more channels I needed to record & watch simultaneously. Luckily my Media Centre is just a PC at heart so it’s a dead easy job to add another dual tuner card (in this case a cheap and cheerful Leadtek PCI DTV2000DS to my existing Hauppauge Nova-T-500 MCE).
Unfortunately it’s not that easy though. For some strange reason Microsoft never considered that anyone would need or want to record and watch more than 2 different channels so they only designed Media Centre to work with 2 tuners. The Media Centre application can see all 4 tuners easy enough in its setup wizard but it only allows you to choose 2.
Thankfully the hard work has already been done and I found the bulk of the “how to” in the forums at XPMediaCentre, in particular this thread. Each installation is unique though so I thought it was worth summarising my particular technique which went as follows:
- After performing a clean installation of MCE 2005, install both tuners then download and install Rollup 2 for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.
Note: You can save previous record settings such as series recordings etc by backing up the \WINDOWS\Application Data\Microsoft\Ehome\recording folder then restoring it to the same location on the clean installation. Don’t forget to backup any programs you’ve recorded too if you want to keep them. These can be found in \Documents and Settings\All Users\Shared Documents\Recorded TV.
- Run the MCE setup wizard choosing the first 2 tuners.
- Setup the guide and add listing to channels as per usual.
- Close the media centre application.
- Download and run MCE Tuner Config utility.
- Ensure the box to enable each tuner for MCE is ticked and each tuner has a unique name.
- Open regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Media Centre\Service\Video\TunersKey.
- The 4 keys for all 4 tuners should be obvious at this point and each will have values listed for Record Order, Record Pref, Watch Order and Watch Pref.
Set the values as follows:
| |
Tuner 1 |
Tuner 2 |
Tuner 3 |
Tuner 4 |
| Record Order |
3 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
| Record Pref |
0 |
0xffffffff |
0xffffffff |
0xffffffff |
| Watch Order |
0 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
| Watch Pref |
0xffffffff |
0 |
0 |
0 |
Now test by attempting to record and watch 4 different channels.
Problems:
- If you find more than 4 tuners listed in the registry, delete them all, reboot and start over from point 2 above. (Windows will automatically recreate the keys on reboot). This sometimes happens apparently due to Windows being confused with all of the PCI to USB controllers that most of these TV cards employ. For more information and other workarounds to this problem search the XPMediaCentre forums for ghost or phantom tuners.
- If a channel scan reveals no channels or there’s several missing when previous scans picked them up without issue, then delete the EPG data found in \WINDOWS\Application Data\Microsoft\Ehome\EPG and try the scan again.
For more help try the forums at XPMediaCentre and TheGreenButton.
Posted in tips | No Comments »
June 16th, 2010
I have stock of a couple of Netgear items at the moment which I’m able to do well below my usual cost. These are brand new with full warranty straight from Netgear Australia. Now, I don’t need them here because I normally ship them directly from distribution warehouses elsewhere so they’re cluttering the place up, so I want them gone ASAP and I’m undercutting the competition to make sure that happens.
First is the DGN1000 802.11n Wireless ADSL modem. These would normally be around $99 but at the moment – $79. Only a couple of these left though so act fast.
It may be the half speed “N150″ version of 802.11n but $79 is cheaper than most 802.11g modems. Check them out here.
Also available with our usual TPG and Exetel discounts for even less!
Update: Sold out. Back to the usual price now. 
Next is the fabulous WNR2000 802.11n wireless router. These are the 2010 version of the popular old WGR614 and equally amazing value for money. A great no-fuss router for people already with modems they need to share and/or make wireless.
Normally over $80, at the moment I have over 30 in stock going for $59.95!
Check them out here.
Posted in marketing | 2 Comments »
May 5th, 2010
Sadly, McAfee have decided to discontinue the Snapgear series of products. For support and warranty phone 1300 559109 or go online at https://mysupport.mcafee.com/Eservice/Default.aspx. For direct access to the online knowledge base click here.
For alternative products check out the Draytek range, the Billion BiGuard series and Cyberoam and D-Link NetDefend products found in the Security Appliances category in the online shop.
Here’s a quick feature comparison of the main contenders (hopefully reasonably accurate) -
Item
|
Price (As at 5/5/10)
|
Built-in ADSL modem
|
Ethernet WAN Ports
|
USB Port for 3G
|
IPSec VPNs
|
PPtP VPNs
|
SSL VPNs
|
Wireless
|
VoIP
|
Anti-Virus
|
|
|
$262.90
|
N
|
2
|
1
|
32
|
32
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
|
|
$306.90
|
N
|
2
|
1
|
32
|
32
|
N
|
802.11G
|
N
|
N
|
|
|
$350.90
|
N
|
2
|
1
|
32
|
32
|
N
|
802.11G
|
2 x FXS, 1 x FXO
|
N
|
|
|
$287.10
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
32
|
32
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
|
|
$377.30
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
32
|
32
|
N
|
802.11N
|
N
|
N
|
|
|
$422.40
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
32
|
32
|
N
|
802.11N
|
2 x FXS, 1 x FXO
|
N
|
|
|
$404.80
|
N
|
2
|
N
|
100
|
100
|
30
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
|
|
$493.90
|
N
|
2
|
N
|
100
|
100
|
30
|
802.11N
|
N
|
N
|
|
|
$539.00
|
N
|
2
|
N
|
100
|
100
|
30
|
802.11N
|
2 x FXS, 1 x FXO
|
N
|
|
|
$526.90
|
N
|
2
|
N
|
200
|
200
|
50
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
|
|
$701.80
|
N
|
4
|
N
|
200
|
200
|
N
|
N
|
Optional FXO & FXS modules available
|
N
|
|
|
$845.90
|
N
|
2
|
N
|
200
|
200
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
Yes
|
|
|
$1,269.40
|
N
|
2
|
N
|
200
|
200
|
50
|
N
|
N
|
Yes
|
|
|
$341.00
|
N
|
2
|
N
|
30
|
4
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
|
|
$396.00
|
N
|
2
|
N
|
30
|
4
|
N
|
802.11G
|
N
|
N
|
|
|
$942.70
|
N
|
2
|
N
|
30
|
4
|
20
|
802.11G
|
N
|
N
|
|
|
$611.60
|
N
|
1
|
N
|
100
|
Y
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
|
|
$993.30
|
N
|
2
|
N
|
300
|
Y
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
|
|
$4,835.60
|
N
|
Up to 5
|
N
|
1200
|
Y
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
|
|
$985.60
|
N
|
1
|
N
|
100
|
Y
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
|
|
$1,608.20
|
N
|
2
|
N
|
300
|
Y
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
|
|
$558.80
|
N
|
Up to 2
|
Y
|
Passthrough
|
Passthrough
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
|
|
$806.30
|
N
|
Up to 3
|
Y
|
Passthrough
|
Passthrough
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
|
|
$1,053.80
|
N
|
Up to 3
|
Y
|
Passthrough
|
Passthrough
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
|
|
$1,486.10
|
N
|
Up to 5
|
Y
|
Passthrough
|
Passthrough
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
|
|
$2,970.00
|
N
|
Up to 5
|
Y
|
Passthrough
|
Passthrough
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
|
|
$3,982.00
|
N
|
Up to 5
|
Y
|
Passthrough
|
Passthrough
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
|
|
$5,888.30
|
N
|
Up to 5
|
Y
|
Passthrough
|
Passthrough
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
|
|
$6,011.50
|
N
|
Up to 5
|
Y
|
Passthrough
|
Passthrough
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
|
|
$12,702.80
|
N
|
Up to 9
|
Y
|
Passthrough
|
Passthrough
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
|
|
$14,500.20
|
N
|
Up to 9
|
Y
|
Passthrough
|
Passthrough
|
N
|
N
|
N
|
Y
|
Posted in new stuff | No Comments »
April 23rd, 2010
Buy any Linksys networking product between 10th March 2010 & 10th May 2010 and go in the draw to win a family holiday at the Gold Coast for 7 nights.
To enter simply send an SMS to 1999 1444 containing the last six (6) digits of the Participating Product barcode, your State/Territory of residence and your full name in that order (for example: “123456 NSW John Smith”).
Premium SMS cost is 55c. Entrants must have premium service access. SMS helpline: 1800 205 596.
Click here for more information and conditions.
Posted in marketing | No Comments »
April 23rd, 2010
Buy any Billion 7800N, 7404VNPX, 7404VNOX, 7402NX or 7300N Router and claim a bonus 3011N Billion 802.11N wireless USB adapter.
Click the banner for details.
Offer Valid between 1st April 2010 and 30th June 2010
Posted in marketing | No Comments »
April 13th, 2010
I recently changed VoIP providers and to my annoyance I discovered that I had to dial area codes for local numbers or the call wouldn’t be connected. Thankfully my router provides an easy way around this by creating dial plan rules.
For Draytek owners this is what it looks like in the VoIP > DialPlan > Digit Map section:
What I’ve done here with these 3 rules is for any 8 digit number I dial that also starts with a 3, 4 or 5 it will automatically add the 07 prefix (for Queensland) and send it through my “VoIP1″ VSP (VoiP Service Provider).
For other options such as routing certain numbers via a certain VSP or via PSTN (such as 1300 numbers to certain national companies which can sometimes connect incoming VoIP calls to the wrong State’s Call Centre) and replacing certain numbers with other numbers and so on see the Draytek FAQ here.
Posted in tips | No Comments »
March 11th, 2010
I’ve just added a “USB Storage” option to the Find-A-Router tool. This will allow searches for routers that have a USB port that can be used to connect a USB Hard Drive or flash drive etc. At this stage there’s not too many products with that feature but it seems to be gaining popularity. I certainly get plenty of enquiries for products with that capability anyway.
I’m also considering adding IPTV but I think by the time I get to that one it will be a fairly standard feature across the board anyway. 
Another one could be IPv6 but because Internode is the only ISP offering it at this stage, the router manufacturers aren’t in a big rush to add it. The only routers I know supporting it so far are higher end products like McAfee, Cisco (not the cheap stuff so far), Nortel etc.
Any other suggestions are welcome.
Posted in new stuff, tips | 5 Comments »