I recently started playing Magic: The Gathering after discovering a wonderful little coffee and game shop in the area. The only problem is that I can only play once a week (Friday Night Magic) which doesn’t leave me a lot of time to practice and get better at it. I was very excited to find out that Wizards of the Coast also makes a Magic: The Gathering online game. What killed my excitement was that you actually have to buy virtual cards to play with. I couldn’t believe it, not only does it cost $10 to get started, there is no discount for the virtual cards compared to their real versions. I call foul on this. I went on a search to find a better way.

There are a few alternatives to Magic: The Gathering Online (MTGO) including Magic Workstation (MWS) and OCTGN. The difference is that MWS is heavily advertisement supported (or you can pay a hefty price for it) and seems to be quite a bit more popular. There are plenty of MWS walkthroughs and how-to’s but little to nothing on OCTGN.

OCTGN is a freeware Microsoft.NET application and a newcomer to the arena. It is more of a framework for multiple kinds of card games but has a truly beautiful interface and great design. It can be downloaded for free from http://www.octgn.net/ but I suggest getting the whole MTG package with it by searching for the torrent “OCTGN 2 with MTG v0.0.2.8″. This includes the MTG game definition as well as all the card images up to Zendikar. It weighs in at a hefty 1.3GB which is why bittorrent is the only sustainable way to get it. I played with it for a few hours last night and want to share how to play MTG with it.

Getting Started

1. Launch the executable and click on Manage Installed Games.
2. Click Install a new game
3. In the root of the folder you downloaded, select Magic-v0.0.2.8.o8g
4. Click Install new cards
5. Browse to 3. T2 Sets – Updated for Sealed\Core Set and select Magic_2010.v0.0.2.6.1.[GO].o8s
6. Repeat the same process for 3. T2 Sets – Updated for Sealed\Zendikar\Zendikar.v.0.0.2.6.1.[GO].o8s
7. Click Close
8. Go to Edit your decks
9. Go to Deck – New – Magic the gathering
10. Pick 20 creatures, 20 lands and 20 spells for starters. Google Build MTG Deck for more advice.
11. Click Deck – Save
12. Close the window

Now you have a deck. Most of the above is for demonstration purposes but is a good starting point. You can build and store as many decks as you want. There are some premade decks. If you want to use them, load 2. Extended Sets – Updated for Sealed\Core Sets\Tenth_Edition.v0.0.2.6.[GO].o8s. Then go to Edit Decks – Deck – Load and pick one.

Game time. One of the nice things is that you can load two copies of OCTGN and play both sides of the table. Go to Start a new game then Start. On the 2nd instance of OCTGN, click on Join an existing game and click Join. I like to use the two-sided table but it’s up to you. Just click the checkmark next to Use a two-sided table. You can also change who is on what side by clicking the A or B. Once you are ready, click Start.

Playing a hand

You now have a blank table. Now, let’s get some cards to play with. Go to File – Load a deck and select the deck you created before. I created a simple mono-black deck with a few of my favorites from Zendikar. I will be loading the same deck for both players.

Once the deck is loaded, the cards are in the exact same order as you added them to the deck. We must shuffle the deck. You can either right-click on the deck and select shuffle or use the keyboard shortcut, ctrl-s. Both players must do this and it will be indicated in the chat window on the lower right.

Who goes first? Typically you roll a 20-sided die to find out, no different here, just right click in the middle of the table and select roll a 20-sided. In the chat window you will see the result. You can also use the keyboard shortcut, ctrl-shift-r. You will start to notice there are keyboard shortcuts for almost all of the actions in the game. This allows you to play very quickly and naturally. In my demo game, Jim rolled a 20 and Jeff a 9.

Looks like Jim get’s to choose and he chooses to play first. Time to draw the hand. Right click on the library (deck of magic cards) and choose Draw many…, keyboard shortcut ctrl-alt-d. A window will pop-up asking how many and default to 7 (the standard hand side). Click ok. Jeff will do the same. Jim only drew 2 swamps and can choose to mulligan down to 6 cards at this point if he wants. Simply right-click on the drawn hand and select mulligan or ctrl-M while over your hand. OCTGN will ask you if you want to mulligan down to 6 (then 5, 4, 3…). I decide to try my luck and skip the mulligan, which I will most likely regret later. Time to start. I click on the green play button next to my Name/Life/Hand-size tab. The chat interface announces Turn 1:Jim.

Turn 1: Jim

I want to get into the untap, upkeep, draw order. You can right-click in the middle of the table and select Go to beginning phase or press F1. If I had any cards already on the table and tapped, it would untap them for me and announce Beginning of UPKEEP PHASE in the chat window. Check your cards and see if there is anything you need to do as part of upkeep.

Since it’s the first turn, I will skip the draw phase (ctrl-d or double-click on my library) and move on to my first main phase. I press F2 to announce that in chat.

This is a good time to make a clarification, especially for those who come from MTGO. OCTGN will not enforce rules, it has no concept of the actual game play. It is simply a virtual environment to play card games in.

Ok, with that cleared up, it’s time to play a card. Double-clicking on a card will move it to the board so I double click on one of my swamps. I have nothing more exciting to do. I can now press F3 to announce Combat, then F4 to announce Second Main Phase then F5 to announce End Step but I think I will just announce I am done by hitting F5 and then clicking the green play arrow next to Jeff’s name.

Turn 2: Jeff

Jeff hits F1 to untap (nothing there yet but a good habit) and then double-clicks on his library to draw a card. He then hits F2 for his main phase. Jeff also plays a swamp but he has a 1 black mana creature, the Guul Draz Vampire. He double-clicks on the swamp to tap it and then double-clicks on the vampire. Note that there seems to be a bug in this version that it plays both cards on the wrong side of the table. Simple drag them back to your side to play. The cards are a little small so he rolls his mouse wheel to zoom in. Then he holds down the space bar and left-click-drags the window around to his liking. Nothing much more to do, can’t really attack due to summoning sickness. To be polite, Jeff hits the Tab key to pass priority to Jim in case he wants to respond to the summoning of a creature. Jim has no response so he hits Tab to pass it back. This doesn’t do anything other than put a message in the chat window. Jeff is finished with his turn and hits F5 to announce the end phase and then clicks on the Play button next to Jim’s name.

Turn 3: Jim

Jim hits F1 as good habit and ctrl-d to draw a card (Jim likes the keyboard shortcuts), then F2 to begin the first main phase. Jim double-clicks on a swamp to play it. Now a choice, I can use disfigure to try to remove Jeff’s vamp or I can bring out a creature of my own. I use the mouse to draw a sqaure around both swamps (left-click and drag) and then double click on one, they will both tap. I play a Surrakar Marauder and press Tab to allow Jeff a chance to respond. Jeff has no response and presses Tab to hand priority back to me. Nothing fancy left for me to do so an F5 announces the end phase, I click on the play button to hand the turn back to Jeff.

Turn 4: Jeff

F1 untaps Jeff’s swamp from the last turn. Jeff draws a card, ahh, disfigure. Jeff hits F2 to move to first main phase. He plays a swamp by double-clicking on it. He wants to get my Marauder out of the way and now is a really good time. He hovers over each of his swamps and hits ctrl-g to tap them and then double-clicks on his Disfigure. Jim can assume that it’s meant for the only creature he has but there is a great way in OCTGN to do this. Holding down the shift key, left click on the Disfigure and drag up to the Marauder. He then hits tab to allow Jim a response. Jim has none and drags the Marauder to the graveyard, so sad. Jim presses tab to return priority to Jeff. Jeff hovers over the Disfigure and taps the delete key, off his spell goes into the graveyard (you guys getting there are multiple ways to do things? He could also right-click and select Destroy Card, pick one you like).

Now that the defenses are clear, Jeff is going to hit F3 to start the combat phase. Jeff hovers over the Vampire and clicks ctrl-A to signify the attack, this is a little different than tapping as it creates a red glow around the card and says “Jeff attacks with ‘Guul Draz Vampire’.” in the chat window. Jeff Tabs over to Jim for a chance to respond. Jim clicks the minus next to the life counter to indicate he is taking one damage to his player. The chat window also indicates that Jim has lost a life. Jim hits tab to pass it back to Jeff. Jeff right clicks in the middle of the table and selects Clean-up targets and combat which will remove the red glow and any arrows that were left over. Jeff now indicated the end phase by hitting F5 and passes the turn to Jim by clicking the play button next to his name.

Turn 5: Jim

F1 (untap and upkeep), ctrl-d (draw), F2 (begin main phase), play swamp, tap two swamps, play Vampire Hexmage. F5, pass the turn by hitting Play next to Jeff. Hopefully you are getting the hang of this.

Turn 6: Jeff

F1 (untap and upkeep), ctrl-d (draw), F2 (begin main phase), play swamp, tap two swamps, play Vampire Hexmage. Now Jeff hits F3, Jeff attacks with Guul Draz Vampire and tabs to indicate Jim is up for blocking phase. Jim right-clicks his Vampire Hexmage and selects block, then shift-left-drags and arrow over to the Guul Draz Vampire. The chat reads “Jim targets ‘Guul Draz Vampire’ with ‘Vampire Hexmage’”. Jeff taps one more swamp and uses the Hideous End against Jim’s Vampire Hexmage. He indicates this by drawing another arrow from the Hideous End to the Vampire Hexmage. The table is looking pretty interesting now. We officially have a stack to address. Starting from the last chat message up, we need to resolve it. Hideous End resolves first causing -2/-2 to Jim’s Vampire Hexmage. The Hexmage is only a 2/1 and therefore drops below 1 toughness sending her to the graveyard. Since Jim has no response and has priority, he drags her off to the graveyard. Jim passes it back to Jeff. Jeff then discards his Hideous End now that it has done its work. The block is still valid even though the Hexmage has moved on to darker places do no damage is assigned. It looks like Jeff has cleared the way for victory in the next few turns but you never know what will come up in the library next for Jim.

Finding Other Players

Honestly I haven’t explored this all that much yet. The one thing you will need to do is poke a hole in your firewall to let another player connect to you. OCTGN uses a peer-to-peer system so there is no central server (yet?) to arrange matches. Much like the actual card game, this is left up to the organizers and players. If you are the one Starting a new game instead of joining, you will need to open the port or forward it from your firewall to the computer running OCTGN. This port number can be found on the Start a new game screen next to Port number to use. Opening and forwarding ports are ouside the purview of this howto but Google is your friend and it depends on your cable/dsl router/modem and OS firewall. You may want to ask in the OCTGN chat for either help on this or finding other players to play against. You will need to provide the other player the internet IP address if they aren’t on the same school/work/home network as you are along with the port number. If you are lucky enough to be on the same network, don’t worry about the router part of the above statement and provide them the local (LAN) IP address. Both of these are on the Start a new game screen.

You can also use Hamachi to provide a small, free, private VPN to play in. This would also remove the need to modify the firewall or router. Check it out at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamachi.

Links to Additional Information

Draft support – http://www.octgn.net/forum/index.php?topic=258.0

OCTGN Home – http://www.octgn.net

OCTGN Blog (with lots of hints and tricks) – http://octgndev.wordpress.com/

MTGSalvation OCTGN Thread – http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=184889

Summary

While the best MTG client out there is MTGO, I feel that OCTGN will quickly become the de factor standard in what a MTG PC client should be. There is a ton of potential and .NET is a great platform. It’s been a long time coming but I am hoping with guides like this one, people will start using and innovating to create unique solutions to allow a wide variety of gameplay. I think the next big challenge is to create a server based matching system and method to validate other peoples decks. Once this hurdle is overcome, it will be a truly great client for anonymous online play.

Several years ago, Melissa purchased a Mazda RX-8 via eBay. She got it for the opening bid amount which was roughly $6000 under Kelly Blue Book value. It seemed too good to be true but after a leap of faith and a flight to Florida, we had one of the best auto purchasing experiences of our life and got the car for a steal, I wanted this experience again.

I have known for several years now that it was time to get into a bigger car. 2-kids, 2-dogs, 4-bikes and all of the gear that goes to support us takes up a lot of space. I have been driving the 1999 Jeep Cherokee since the day before we brought our twins home from the hospital over 8 years ago. It’s a great car and it took us to both coasts on multiple occasions but I just needed something bigger.

I spotted the 2006 Jeep Commander in 2005 at Boo-At-The-Zoo. I knew immediately that this would be my future car. The only problem is that I would have to wait 3-years. For anyone not in on the finer points of depreciation, most vehicles lose more than 50% of their value in the first 3-years. After that, it’s a nice gentle decline until the vehicle no longer has sale value. It had enough room for all of us, including the dogs I didn’t know we would have yet. I liked the idea of a 3rd row so my folks could come with us out to dinner and share one car. I liked that Jeep Commander and would patiently wait until 2009 for it.

Melissa started hitting craigslist and eBay looking for 2006 Jeep commanders earlier in the year and has been reminding me that the time had come. All of her experience told us that we were looking at about $22k for one with the features I wanted. The biggest requirement was a new technology called MDS that shuts off 4 of the 8-cylinders in the engine to conserve gas when the engine isn’t stressed and the car is at cruising speed (e.g. road trips). This happens to only be available on the HEMI engine (no, that didn’t hurt my feelings… HEMI good). We finally found one on craigslist and I called only to find out weeks later that the owner was going through a divorce and the ownership kept changing hands. I relayed this story to a gentlemen by the name of Davin at our quinennial garage sale. He told me he happened to be a car broker and had access to the local auto-auction where I could get a great deal on the vehicle I wanted…

Could this be possible?

I took Davin up on his offer to send me a list of the 2006 Jeep Commanders going at the following weeks auto-auction. The list I got in the email had almost 50 Jeeps! I used an online VIN decoder to determine which ones had the HEMI and shortlisted 20 Commanders.

On a warm Tuesday afternoon, we met Davin at the auction lot which was a bit of a drive near I-70 & Airport Blvd. It was really nice. There were thousands of cars as far as the eye could see, every one of them had the keys in the ignition and not a sales-vulture in sight. We located the rows containing the 20 Jeeps I wanted to drive and took them to the test track. It’s not the racetrack you might think. More like a one-lane quarter-mile straight-away to test acceleration and breaking. The first one drove fine and had more features than I could have imagined. The afternoon quickly progressed into evening and we worked our way through the cars. I brought a notepad and wrote the ID number of each car, what I liked and how much I wanted to pay for it. We ended up there past closing time for the lot because I had to drive a 2009 Mustang Shelby GT 500 (come on, you would do it too if you had the chance). I got home, discussed the cars with Melissa and settled on prices. I emailed Davin the 5 ones I liked with the prices I was willing to pay.

The next day was Wednesday, auction day. Davin had replied that he thought my numbers were a little low. To be fair to him, every one of the prices I gave him were under Kelly Blue Book private sale. There is only one problem with an auction broker and that is how they get paid. Their pay comes from the difference between the price they get it for at auction and the price I give him that I am willing to pay. This puts us a little at odds with each other so I had to determine what his services were worth. I would have rather paid a flat fee for the service and had Davin be 100% on my side of the deal instead of trying to do backwards math on the selling price of the car.

I got a text message on my iPhone at 10:18am: -

Jim the 1st commander just sold for 19500.. The hemis are bringing all the money. Can we go to 20k on them? I can get one there.

Another 06 limited without the hemi just went for 19k

It had 31k miles on it..

This was not a good time for me to be rational, I ended up catching a bit of a cold from staying out the night before and had taken a healthy dose of cough syrup (the good kind) that morning. I relied on Melissa to keep me straight and replied back:

We can go 19.5k total including fees on ones under 30k miles

The next set of text messages were much the same, Commanders going for higher than my maximum. The good news was that this auction would happen every week so I wasn’t in a hurry. I justified my patience… I could take the family on vacation in the Cherokee one more year. Oh, but I wanted a new car and the experience the night before was fresh in my head. I put my phone down, un-paused my movie and decided not to think about it anymore.

Several hours later my phone rang, it was Davin. “We got the 2nd to last one”, he said. As the day had progressed, dealers had left after getting what they came for. The crowd was thinner and therefore competition wasn’t as fierce. I pulled out my notepad and looked up the 2nd to last one. My notes:

06 24k miles – dark khaki – doesn’t start (dead battery) – flat RR tire

Oh God, what had I gotten myself into. Davin had told me that all vehicles sold would run, have any flats fixed and anything missing replaced. They also went through a full mechanical and frame inspection before delivery. The Jeep was also under factory warranty until October or 36k miles. Davin said that I might not be able to pick it up that day since it took a bit of time to get them all through inspections. No problem, no rush (patience Jim, patience). Later that day he called and said the car ran great, it was loaded with features and I had gotten it for a steal. The one minor problem was some road noise while making gentle right turns. He was going to take it into the dealership to have that fixed.

Thursday – Still being repaired

Friday – Still being repaired

Saturday – Still being repaired

Sunday – Umm, closed.

Monday – It’s ready! They ended up finding the problem being that the front drivers side tire had worn funny. Nothing mechanical. All was good. Melissa and I drove to Davin’s office and signed the paperwork, very easy. I was a little frustrated with the $150 dealer prep and handling fee but decided to let it go seeing how much effort had gone into inspecting, repairing, riding the dealership and even detailing the car.

I love my Commander. It has more features than I could have imagined. I will have to write up a better detailed review in another post. For now, here’s what you should do if you buy a car at auction:

• Get a list of cars that match your criteria and map out your path
• Set aside lots of time to try them out
• Take lots of notes on the cars and don’t set prices until you are home and thinking clearly
• Use Kelly Blue Book to get a starting point and don’t be afraid to go under their prices
• If at all possible, get one that is still under factory warranty
• Don’t fall in love with any one car, be open to options
• Prices on cars later in the auction (higher auction numbers) will be better with less competition. There is where you will find your deal
• Get a broker you can trust
• Remember that you don’t have to get a car at the first auction. You may just want to get a list of cars that your broker can note how much they go for. For our auction, they had a bunch of Jeep’s every week and I could have waited another week, or two, or three..
• Have fun. The buying process shouldn’t give you an ulcer. If you don’t feel good about it, don’t do it. Wait another day, another week or even another month.

Happy buying, please leave a comment if you have any more suggestions or to share your experience.

As a mobile technology enthusiast I have always had the latest and greatest of converged communicators; Smartphone’s, PDA’s, whatever you want to call them. My obsession started very early and the best device I ever had was an Apple Newton. I would have never made it through college without it.

My 2-year contract subsidizing the purchase of my Treo 750 (Windows Mobile 6) was running out and I had started to research its successor. I will admit that I had kept running into the iPhone in all of my searches and I ended up reading more that I wanted to about it. I couldn’t find any complaints really, just happy users. Did I want to be one of those happy people with the white fruit sticker on the back of my car?

After 2 more days of waffling on it I made the purchase. Off to the Apple store I went. It was very busy but I was able to get my shiny new 16GB iPhone in about 20 minutes. It was surprisingly easy and I was even offered a feature tour. It was charged, loaded with great apps and was even able to use it to call my wife to meet up as soon as I left the store.

4-days later and I am still working through the transition. Here’s a list of the functions and how I am solving any incompatibilities:

This is a really tough adoption for me. Apple has a beautiful platform that’s early on in the market. There isn’t all that much adoption yet but at the rate they are going, they will have everything I am missing and beyond within 6-months. I really enjoyed being on a standard platform like Windows Mobile. Anything I wanted was already available and was usually free. I was gambling every time I installed an application and right before the upgrade my Treo was in sad shape. I had to perform weekly reboots, it would inexplicably lock up and I wouldn’t know until I tried to use it. My alarm wouldn’t go off some mornings because it lost the mini-SD card. But it did everything I needed, if not reliably.

Overall I am very excited at all of the things that just work on the iPhone. I really like the look and feel of the device; it just feels good in your hand. The App Store is nice and makes it just as easy to spend my money as my Kindle does. I feel like I am getting good value for the cost. When I look back at all the hacking, fighting, searching, downloading, cabling, manual updating, etc., I think $0.99 is a deal. Free is great, even some of the applications that are more than $5 easily pay for themselves vs. their Windows Mobile counterparts. I always hated the whole install process on WM6 and that you were almost always stuck to your PC to install stuff. It’s a good platform with a bright future. I am going to stick with it, we will see what the next 2-years hold for mobile technology.

The frame itself was very easy and quick to setup. The AC adapter is reasonably small and has a long enough cord to place the frame in the right spot. This unit has about 1″ of clear edging and a glossy black plastic framing the actual 8″ screen and looks very stylish and fits right in with most modern picture frames. On the back of the frame is a 4-way directional control along with Enter and Esc buttons and a 3-position switch for off, on and on with the clear edging to be lit with some blue LED’s. I was glad to see that the edge lighting was an option and turned it off initially. I connected the frame to my PC with the included USB to Mini-USB cable (I now have more than 50 of these cables) and Vista recognized each slot and the internal memory on the unit as a separate drive. They kindly gave the internal memory a drive label so it was quick to find. I picked out 12 of my favorite digital pictures and copied them over to the frame. The unit is inactive when it is plugged into the PC except to display a message of PC Connecting… I had to reset the unit after I transferred the pictures over and it came up with a calendar/time page and a static picture of snowy trees. I tried the included remote control out and it didn’t seem to do anything. I actually had to open the instruction manual at this point to figure out how to get to my pictures. The enter button will take you to the memory card selection screen where you can select which card you want to manage/view media from. I say media because the unit also plays video and MP3′s. Once you have selected your source, you have another menu to show pictures, play music, play videos or setup options. If you show pictures it shows a 9-thumbnail view, select a picture and the slide show starts. Overall the interface was clunky and non-intuitive but if done right, you shouldn’t need to spend much time in it. If you dig into the Setup menu you can change the speed of the slideshow by selecting Slideshow Model in Picture Settings (starting to feel the interface pain?). The options there are Slow (10-sec per image), Medium (5-sec per image) and Fast (3-sec per image). The fact that there are 15-transitions and 3-speed settings doesn’t please me a whole lot. The good news is that you can hit the escape as soon as the show starts and it will hold that picture. When you are interested in a new image, hit the left or right directional to select a new picture. I guess this is a manual delay but it works for me. I would prefer a 1-hour or user customizable setting. Now on to the good stuff.

So far you would probably consider not buying this frame, here is why you should. The image quality is stunning. Viewsonic did a great job where it counts. If you think about 800×480 on an 8-inch screen it’s and incredibly high level of detail in a small space. All of my pictures are crisp with no blur and look just like their paper counterparts. The lighting and contrast are defaulted very nicely. I have not yet noticed any drop offs in the angle of viewing vertically or horizontally. Even the frame-glow is growing on me, more because it attracts peoples attention and why else would we setup a digital picture frame other than to attract attention to our photos who were previously doomed to live out their lives in some corner of our hard drives or worse a dusty CD.

Someday I will play with the video and audio capabilities of this frame but honestly, while I am at work, I don’t need another distraction and can’t think of a practical use. If I am going to do video, I am going to watch it on a big LCD panel (read TV). If I want to listen to music, it’s not going to be from tinny sub-laptop grade speakers in the back of this frame.

The last nice feature I haven’t used but plan to is the ability to transfer pictures from a USB device like a thumb drive. It’s nice to have the ability to plug my camera’s memory stick into the unit and copy pictures off but realistically, I always preprocess my images, remove red-eye, adjust contrast and brightness, crop, etc, before I am going to be presenting them. This way I can fix them up and dump them to my thumb drive, take them to work and use the included mini-USB to female-USB adapter to copy them off.

Overall I am very pleased and look forward to enjoying pictures on this frame. I will update this post with any changes as I get more time with it.

Technical Specifications

			Playback: 24-Bit/96kHz up to 7.1
			Signal-to-Noise Ratio: >100dB (20kHz Low-pass filter, A-Weighted)
			Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise at 1kHz: <0.007% (20kHz Low-pass filter)
			Recording: 24-bit/96kHz

X-Fi Technology

			X-Fi Crystalizer
			X-Fi CMSS-3D Virtual
			X-Fi CMSS-3D Headphone

Connectivity

			Line in / Microphone in (shared 1/8″ mini jack)
			Speaker out (4x 1/8″ mini jacks)
			Optical out (TOSLINK)*
			Optical in (TOSLINK)
			Intel HD Audio Compatible Front Panel Header (2x5pin)

* Digital Out supports stereo SPDIF out and pass through of multichannel DVD sound

Notice that it says X-Fi Technology, now looking at the PCI version:

Technical Specifications

Technical Specs
			24-bit Analog-to-Digital conversion of analog inputs at 96kHz sample rate
			24-bit Digital-to-Analog conversion of digital sources at 96kHz to analog 7.1 speaker output
			24-bit Digital-to-Analog conversion of stereo digital sources at 192kHz to stereo output
			16-bit to 24-bit recording sampling rates: 8, 11.025, 16, 22.05, 24, 32, 44.1, 48 and 96kHz
			ASIO 2.0 support at 16-bit/44.1kHz, 16-bit/48kHz, 24-bit/44.1kHz 24-bit/48kHz and 24-bit/96kHz with direct monitoring
			Enhanced SoundFont support at up to 24-bit resolution
			64MB of X-RAM
Audio Performance (Rated Output @ 2Vrms, Typical Value)
			Signal-to-Noise Ratio (20kHz Low-pass filter, A-Weighted) - Stereo Output 109dB - Front and Rear Channels 109dB - Center, Subwoofer and Side Channels 109dB
			Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise at 1kHz (20kHz Low-pass filter) = 0.004%
			Frequency Response (-3dB, 24-bit/96kHz input ) 10Hz to 46kHz
			Frequency Response (-3dB, 24-bit/192kHz input) 10Hz to 88kHz (Stereo only)
Connectivity
			Speaker and Headphone connections for stereo to 7.1 (Line Out via three 3.5mm mini jacks)
			Line In / Microphone In / Digital Out* / Digital I/O** (shared 3.5mm FlexiJack)
			Auxiliary Line level Input (via 4-pin Molex connector)
			I/O Console connector (for optional upgrade)

* Digital Out supports stereo SPDIF out and pass through of multichannel DVD sound
** Digital I/O requires Sound Blaster Digital I/O Module (Sold Separately)

It’s no wonder they don’t have a compare feature, apart from the physical connections, what would you compare?

I need to replace my sound card but speculation suggests that this card isn’t all that much better than the built in sound. I’m not sure if I want to risk a restocking fee just to find out. Had anyone seen an authoritative review on the PCI-E card?

• Logitech Harmony 890 Remote
• Hackers & Painters Book
• Joel on Software Book
• Camelbak Rogue 70oz
• Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter 8000
• Plantronics Discovery 655 Bluetooth Headset
• Chicago Cutlery Insignia Steel 18-Piece Cutlery Block Set
• New Zeland Dog Whistle
• Insteon wall switch
• Comedy Club Tickets
• Red Steel Wii
• Flexible Cutting Mats
• Chefs Hat
• Analog Clip Watch
• World of Warcraft with 90-day subsciption
• Bike Storage Lifts

The next remote in the Harmony line, the Logitech Harmony 890 Remote from Melissa. This thing is great. So far I have spent a lot of time setting it up. It has an RF link to a little remote blaster in my video cabinet so no more getting just the right angle on the remote to hit everything. Very pretty screen and a great feel. I copied my original Harmony settings into it but found that it has quite a few more buttons so I have been tweaking it sitting in front of the TV every chance I get.

Melissa was also kind enough to find books that relate to my interests but aren’t purely technical. I am looking forward to reading Hackers & Painters and Joel On Software

She also found a fantastic new Camelback Rogue for all of our outdoor hydration needs. This replaces our 7-year old unit that has seen better days and has some very funny tasting water.

My parents picked me up some very fun gadgets. I have been doing more and more sales demos and my old wired mouse was giving me headaches. They gave me a Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter 8000 which not only natively supports bluetooth (read no stupid dongle) but flips over to have a set of buttons to control presentations and even a built in laser pointer. I love it! I have also started relying heavily on Skype and being tied to my desk isn’t always good during those long calls. I tried to use my Motorola HS810 but it’s hard to wear and dies pretty quickly. They set me up with the awesome Plantronics Discovery 655. Not only does it have fantastic sound and weighs nothing but also has a set of charging accessories to make sure you are never out of power. You can charge it in its innovative little tube using an AC outlet, AAA battery or even USB from your PC. Because I already have a mini-USB power adapter for my GPS in my car, I can even charge it there! I look forward to spending more time with this little gem.

I have been trying hard to become better in the kitchen. Every chef knows that a good set of knives can really make a difference. My folks got me a nice top of the line Chicago Cutlery Insignia Steel 18-Piece Cutlery Block Set. These are beautiful and razor sharp. I have only used them a few times but what a difference.

Melissa’s parents located Red Steel for Nintendo Wii. I haven’t had a chance to play yet but look forward to it. My brother-in-law Dave and his wife Amber recently returned from New Zeland and picked me up some fun stuff. A New Zeland Dog Whistle that fits in your mouth and is loud as all get out, this one is too much fun to play with but gets on everyones nerves so I haven’t perfected using it. They also kindly got me an Insteon wall switch. These are the top of the line remote wall switches and I have been slow to convert from the old X10 due to cost. My sister-in-law Stephanie and her fiance Matt provided a welcome night of laughter with tickets to a local comedy club and babysitting so we can get away for an evening. Should be lots of fun.

Melissa is sick of scraping her shins on my bike and I can’t get to my workbench anymore beacuse of hers. The bike storage lift kits promise to resolve the issue by suspending them from the ceiling. I will get to installing them in the garage when the temperature gets back over 25 degrees in there.

Jeff and Tara got us our most time-consuming present yet, World of Warcraft with 90-days of prepaid playing time. I have been an avid Everquest player for several years and play on a free emulated server called Shards of Dalaya. I have greatly enjoyed a new gaming addiction and will have to post a full blog entry on my comparisons. To say the least, I love it, I want to play it every minute of every day.

The stockings were alot of fun this year as well. I got some flexible cutting matts and a chefs hat which I look very suave in as well as an Eddie Bauer Analog Clip watch for my backpack or jacket. I fear if I add one more thing to my backpack that it will require its own FCC ID and I won’t be able to take it on the plane. Dark chocolate, Almond Roca, Altoids and some good office supplies rounded out the stocking and are great to have.

There should be two major troubleshooting points for CCTV, the camera’s themselves and the central terminating location (CTL) in which the video signal is captured and the power is supplied (if power is not supplied mid-run or directly at the camera location). Troubleshooting will be started at the CTL and then move to each individual camera. It helps to have a baseline camera that is working in order to capture normal readings for comparison. Remember that CCTV cabling should be as follows

Tools Needed

• Digital Volt Meter (DVM)
• Electrical Tape

Optional Tools

• BNC or F-type connector and small piece of coax
• 9V battery

1)      Determine and mark which power line corresponds to each camera.

2)      Take the baseline readings from the good camera:

a)      At the CTL, check the voltage where the DC adapter is connected to the line for the power run and verify correct voltage and amperage according to the power supply. You may need to disconnect the DC adapter from the power run line to read voltage. VOLTS _________________  AMPS _________________

b)      At the CTL, disconnect the camera power source, typically a DC adapter, from the power run line and read the resistance to the camera: OHMS ____________

c)      At the CTL, disconnect the video terminator and check the resistance from the middle pin and the outer shield towards the camera: OHMS ______________

d)      At the good camera, disconnect power and video and check the resistance towards the camera (this will check the camera itself, skip if you have a monitor to test). Read the resistance at the power connector: OHMS ______
Video connector: OHMS______

3)      At the CTL, for each camera power line, perform the same tests and compare.

4)      If the power supply reads nothing or incorrectly once disconnected from the run-line, replace the power supply. If the resistance is infinite, there is a break in the power line (unless the working camera read infinite resistance).

5)      Disconnect the video terminator (F-Type, BNC, etc) from the device (Computer, VCR, Monitor, etc) and read the resistance towards the camera, once again if this is infinite, you have a break in the coax and you will need to check the connectors and finally replace the coax if you can’t repair it at the connector.

6)      At the CTL, reconnect the power supply to the power run line for each camera.

7)      From each camera, disconnect the power line from the camera and check the volts and amps on the power line towards the CTL, they should be the same as the original CTL-side readings.

      Creating a loopback tester:

a)      Using the terminator and the short piece of coax, terminate one end of the coax with the BNC or F-Type connector.

b)      On the other end, strip back about 3 inches of insulation so that the core wire is exposed and a good amount of shielding is exposed

c)      Cut the shielding, lengthwise (do not cut it away from the rest of the shielding completely) and spin it together.

d)      Touch the shielding to the core and secure (you can just wrap it, use electrical tape or soldier but in the voltage test, this will need to be disconnected)

9)      Connect the loopback connector at the camera end towards the CTL.

10)   At the CTL, use the DVM to check for continuity back to the camera, if no continuity, the cable is broken or the connector is not fully connected and the run will need to be replaced or the connector repaired.

11)  Creating a cable integrity tester (CIT): This will rule out in-line shorts

a)      Disconnect the loopback core wire and shielding

b)      Connect the shielding to the negative side of the 9v and the core to the positive side of the 9v using electrical tape or soldiering.

12)  Testing: YOU MUST disconnect the camera and video terminator from both ends of the line or the equipment could be damaged.

a)      From the camera side, connect the CIT towards the CTL.

b)      Using the DVM, check the voltage at the CTL end of the video run, it should be approximately 9v. If not, there is an integrity problem somewhere in the line where the core is touching the shielding. The run should be replaced or the terminator/connector reconnected.