A few weeks ago I picked up the Logitech Revue. I was excited for the possibilities of Google TV and wanted some new fun gadget to play with. I have some thoughts on the Google TV but before I get there, a bit about my set up and issues along the way. Note that my setup issues mostly had to do with missing hardware and out dated hardware on my end not related to the Google TV.

My previous setup was basic cable, run to multiple pc's networked in the house. Those PC's are all running Windows Media Center (most Windows machines have it). Windows Media Center has been the very best way to have an Internet and DVR home entertainment system set up. The UI has been improved over the years and it works very well. Why Microsoft hasn't promoted the heck out of it I just don't know. It puts everything else to shame. Anyway this is about Google TV, so enough of that.

My TV is actually a Panasonic PT-AX100U projector I picked up a couple years ago. It throws up an 8 foot wide image on my wall. I have it hung from the ceiling, up with it was an Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and a Wii. The Xbox 360 was networked into the home, and streamed live TV and DVR content from any of my machines. It also streamed my music, etc. Worked pretty well too. I didn't have a great way to browse the web from my projector, and the devices were all stacked up on top of the projector, which was entirely unsafe for anyone sitting on the couch underneath.

In order to have my devices down at ground level, and keep the projector up top, I needed new equipment. I decided to go for an HDMI setup. I picked up a receiver (Denon AVR-391) which has 4 HDMI inputs and supports 3D through HDMI. I don't have or care about 3D, but it couldn't hurt to make sure my receiver would support it just in case. It has one HDMI output, so I ran a 50 foot HDMI cable up the ceiling and down to my projector. I then picked up some inexpensive surround sound speakers, mounted everything up and presto.

I then found out my original Xbox 360 doesn't offer HDMI out. DAMN. I don't have many games, but what I do have is almost exclusively for the Xbox 360 including my favorite, which is Rock Band. So new Xbox for me!

Next, I had to set up Dish Network. I wasn't happy with Comcast, and wanted to try something new. Dish Network has special integration in the Google TV as they offer DVR through an integrated UI. So that is what I picked.

A couple tips for those doing similar sort of thing.

1) Not all HDMI cables are the same. Make sure what you get is rated version 1.4a for the 3D support, or at least 1.3 from what I read. This has to do with the kind of data that goes up and down along with the audio and video. I did NOT buy the most expensive. I also bought online and not at Best Buy and other retailers who charge way way to much for those cables.

2) If you run cables along a wall, you are probably going to get some sort of cover for it. The kind I ran had a sticky bottom, and worked really well. My issue was I put it right along a beam on my ceiling. Not a big deal until you want to apply a connector which bridges two pieces. The cover can't wrap around it, as there is no space between your case and the beam. Bah.

3) If you order Dish Network you can also get Google TV via the Logitech Revue. Nobody at Dish Network really understands the Google TV or Logitech Revue gear. They can't actually sell you the Logitech Revue at discount until they already have done the Dish Network install. Yup, they have to come out twice. Plus even if you tell them you are doing Google TV, they may give you an incompatible Dish box, which is what they gave me. I noticed right away and forced them to give me something different. I was lucky they had another option in the van. Double check what kind of Dish receiver you have. Only the 622, 722 and 722k support the special integration to google TV. My Dish installer hadn't even heard of Google TV, and didn't have much interest. I ended up just going to Best Buy to get the Logitech Revue. It was faster to do it this way, and at least I had complete control over the process.

At this point everything worked except my projector showed a massive horizontal bar 8 feet wide that flashed on and off every couple seconds. It did this with all my input sources. At first I thought an issue with my receiver, or maybe my HDMI cable, but after a lot of trial and error, and replacing parts, pieces, I found out that my projector needed a firmware update. Turns out the projector didn't do the HDMI handshake the way that all the newest gear does. This was especially bad with the Dish Network DUO 722k receiver they gave me. Why I can't just update my own firmware, I don't know, so I called Panasonic, which confirmed my issue and I sent it off for repair. It cost $230 plus shipping, but they also replaced some parts. My projector came back working SO MUCH BETTER. I was skeptical, but my HD output from the projector is amazing now.

I also set a google TV in the bedroom for our smaller TV. That was just a direct connection and nothing worth talking about.

So what do I think of the actual Google TV experience? It is a mix of good and bad. The Logitech Revue comes with a very nice keyboard. I like the hardware and everything works just fine. It is light but sturdy and the track pad works just fine as a mouse device.

The OS is weak. I would consider it a .5 beta release really. I am surprised they released it so soon. Must be the holiday sales pressure from the hardware manufacturers.

The OS itself isn't consistent from screen to screen. The back button doesn't always do what you think it will. The search is pretty good, but could be better. Many of the websites for watching your favorite shows have now blocked the Google TV. I expect Google will come up with an arrangement with those stations at some point soon. Personally, it has no effect on my experience, as I have TV and DVR. Others will want the Revue without actually having cable or dish service connected. It just isn't good for TV in that scenario until content providers get on board.

As for the Dish Network integration... it is pretty good. At some points you need to change over to the Dish UI and when you do it is... well it is Dish. Which is to say who the hell built those DVR menus? Fired. All of them. 'Set Timer' is the button which really means 'done' when setting a show to record? Really? Anyway, that isn't part of google TV, and you can use google TV to set DVR instead, which works much better. If you don't have Dish Network, then you just use the regular cable interface when doing functions like DVR. Not really a bad deal, and hopefully there will be more integration with other TV programming providers in the future.

Browsing the Internet works pretty well. The version of Chrome browser seems to be a bit old, which is also surprising. Why not have the latest? Also it gets confusing which trying to change tabs. If you are a power browser surfing on multiple tabs at once then you will be a bit frustrated with the UI. That said, there is something very handy about pausing or putting your TV show in a mini window, then jumping over to the web to do whatever you need. IMDB, weather, email, etc. On my projector it is pretty freaking awesome. You can also play many of the Flash games out there. I haven't found any websites that don't work. Well, that don't work due to a failure. There are sites that block the Google TV and others like Hulu which haven't yet worked out licensing agreements.

One case point for browsing. We had friends over asking about what the Halloween Parade is like in Portsmouth NH. I pressed the search button, typed in Halloween Parade 2009 Portsmouth and before hitting enter had a list of youtube videos to watch. I click on one and presto, full screen youtube of the parade, and my friends in the parade. It was great.

The system comes with a few apps already including Netflix. I am a fan of Netflix and it works just fine, though there is NO search. Really? I would be pretty pissed about this, but I read this morning that an update is about to come out (just a few days) which greatly enhances the experience including search. In the mean time I can just jump over to a browser and search through their regular website and mark what I want for the cue.

And that is the really great part of Google TV. One update has already come out, others are clearly coming. The device will continue to be updated and improved. I can search the web, while watching TV, and feel comfortable that it will be a better and better experience over time.

Not only that, but I can build apps for it, much in the same way people can create apps for Android phone OS (same basic thing). I expect that in 3-4 months there are a huge number of apps to pick from. App development is something I haven't started yet, however I know that you can do it with Adobe AIR platform. If you can create something in Flash/Actionscript, you can make Google TV apps. I am sure you can also make native apps in Java as well. As of this blog post, development isn't available for the masses. They say early 2011, so hopefully it isn't too long.

Bottom line for Google TV: If you want perfection, there isn't any device out there that provides it yet. Just wait. If you like new tech, grab the Review. It is inexpensive ($300), works pretty well and the future looks bright. Just beware there are some hiccups along the way and if you want to watch TV on it, you still need dish or cable service. Lets all hope that gets sorted out in 2011.

For some fun, here is the latest advertisement. Rather funny in my opinion, and shows the Google TV in action a bit.

I have just started taking a reasonable look at developing for the Blackberry Playbook. The specs certainly look pretty good. Dual-Core! So far there are only a few videos showing it in action, but those videos show a nice looking tablet. From all accounts the tablet itself will not be out until early next year. That means we have some time to develop applications for it.

Developing apps for the Playbook is currently done with Adobe AIR. Mac or PC. Anyone with actionscript knowledge can build apps pretty darn quickly. There will be native app development options in the future, but do not seem to be available currently. As a bonus developing in AIR means with little effort that same app can likely be deployed to android devices, or a native iPhone app.

Development is free, and for a limited time they have a wonderful promotion. If you develop an app and it is accepted into the market, they send you a free Playbook. Sweet right?

I tried out the sdk, went through the install process and found myself relatively unscathed. I am not a flash/flex developer so some of the tooling is a bit new to me, however their instructions are easy to follow. Once I had resolved my small issues, making a Hello World app was a snap. There are a couple small gotchas I should mention though.

1) Their SDK doesn't support Win7 64 bit. It is coming, but not out yet. There is a pretty easy workaround for it, involving downloading/installing the jdk for 32 bit, then pointing a config file to the 32 bit java install. Nothing horrible, but it will be very nice to NOT have to do that.

2) You can use the command line to compile the app, but using Flash Builder is much easier, plus you have the benefit of Flash Builder functionality. You need 4.0.1 though. Not 4.0 (easy patch to 4.0.1) and not yet 4.5. They say burrito support is coming, and I think you can update it to build from command line, but I haven't tried it.

Also, they have a webcast series which should be informative.

So, what are you waiting for?

It is time to start thinking about next years conferences. cf.Objective() will be one of the first conferences for many of us. This year they are soliciting feedback regarding what sessions you might like to see. Check out their current list and add your ideas.

It looks like they have plans to bring some new elements to cf.Objective() this year and that bodes well for the event and our own education. Bob has a nice outline of what they are up to.

If you haven't been, this is a great conference. The sessions are generally more advanced and the speakers are fantastic. Certainly a good kick start to the conference season and a great way to bring you up to speed on some advanced skills and new technology.

It has been just over a week since I set off as a freelance developer. So far so good. It is also time to start billing clients! My first step, though, was a quick meeting with my accountant/tax guy. I have an LLC for the business and got some pretty good advice right away for how to track my expenses, understand revenue, pay myself, etc. He recommended getting some sort of software that he could then log into to view. This would be useful for our quarterly meetings, and for tax time.

I did some research and picked FreshBooks as my online billing tool. (affiliate link) There were a number of favorable website mentions of it and a number of my peers on twitter also recommended it. I have to say I am rather impressed. I picked the free package, but will likely need to upgrade at some point. The monthly fee is low enough I don't even need to think about it.

Right off the bat I easily added a couple client accounts, gave them login access to review their own account status. Made some projects and was able to start adding timesheet information right away. The interface is clean and simple, and there are a number of options to change the look and feel to match my own branding. Right now I really don't have a brand so I kept the nice clean look it already had.

Timesheets, how I loathe timesheets! Truth be told, it really isn't very bad with this tool. I am not sure how well it would work if you had say, 300 clients/projects to manage. But I don't ever expect to do that. The interface is clean and easy, and the summary tools are ready to know where you are on a given project hourly total, how many hours you have billed today, this month, etc.

One set of features I really appreciated are the invoicing options. I have some clients whom I need to invoice on a recurring basis a fixed amount. That was incredibly easy. I can see the status of the invoice, if the client is objecting, has marked it paid, or has even viewed it. Clients can log in, view the invoice, the time sheets for each project, etc and post their questions/thoughts. Other clients have fixed price projects of x number of hours, others still I bill at my standard rate, and one I have negotiated a special hourly rate. Every single example here was very easy to set up. I have only sent out my invoices via email, but there were options to save as PDF, snail mail, or even have them pay online via PayPal, Authorize.net, Google Checkout and a number of others. I would rather get checks as my invoices are larger, and I don't want to pay the % for cc processing. I can see why the online processing would be handy for others though.

I also started recording all my expenses. This will probably be the most tricky for me, as I am not all that great with paperwork. So far I just set up a different bank account, put ALL business expenses on that account, and save everything related to a receipt in a binder for review later. My accountant has informed me that tracking expenses is critical, due to how us freelancers are taxed. FreshBooks has a system to track generic expenses vs project specific expenses, which will come in handy for the times when I need to travel.

I have also looked into inDinero for my general business money management tool. It has an integration feature with FreshBooks, which is very handy. inDinero also connects directly with PayPal, and many banks, which helps reconcile records. You can then send your accountant their own login and presto! It still isn't clear to me if I need it though, as Freshbooks does so much of what I need. It may not matter though as I use a smaller local bank (which I love) and they do not sync with InDinero quite yet.

So far what I thought that this whole billing/time tracking/paperwork trail process would be the worst part of being a freelancer, however it has been super easy. Hopefully there are no surprises down the road.

My projects thus far have been simple ColdFusion programming/support. I am chatting with a few people about more interesting work, where I would get to delve into new aspects of CF 9, HTML5 and Flash/AIR. I hope to set aside more free time after RIAUnleashed to work on Adobe AIR development for Google TV. Speaking of which, I got a Google TV. I plan to make a blog post about it in the next few days.

<cfset tomorrow= new life.phase(me) />

I am excited, and a bit nervous, to announce that I am officially setting off on my own as an independent developer/consultant for hire. This is a very big move for me, and I am enormously excited for what tomorrow will bring.

One might ask why I am making this change; especially given the turbulent economy. Lets just say it really felt like the right time to do something new. I yearn to explore beyond my previous role, and start up new projects/businesses where I find opportunity. It is very easy to think 'maybe next year' and settle into what feels comfortable, pushing off ambition and change forever. I find that real learning and growth often comes from change and the confronting the uncomfortable. Having a supportive and understanding wife helps a lot as well.

I am also profoundly sad to be leaving my friends and colleagues. I have worked at Harbour Light and then at Savvy Software (they are sister companies) for about 14 years. This encompasses the entirety of my professional life thus far. Virtually everything in my life has changed in that time except my job, and the people I work with. I owe everyone a huge helping of thanks for the great times, personal growth, opportunities, learning, and friendship. They have been with me through many important phases of my life, and it is more than a little emotional for me to write this right now. Lets just leave it at that.

The good news is that I will still be working with them time to time. A fact that has been more comforting to me then I had initially expected. I have great confidence in the future of Savvy CMS. I love the product and the customers, and am excited to continue to be involved wherever they need me. Savvy Software will be forging ahead without me with ease and their future is bright. I can't wait to see what they have in store for us in the upcoming year.

I also want to take a moment to thank the wonderful and inspirational online community that I often hang out with. I have met many developers from all over the globe--at conferences such as CFUnited, CF.Objective(), RIAUnleashed, NCDevCon, MAX and more. Twitter, blogs, and other social websites have added a great new facet to the community over the past couple years, of which I am also deeply appreciative. It is the CF community that is probably the most inspiring to me. Great job trouble makers, I blame you. ;-)

Regarding the future, I have a couple of clients already lined up. I am interested in talking to others, should there be a good fit. The business model I am looking at involves a small number of clients in a retainer role. X number of hours a month package essentially. I am still ironing out the details, but so far I think it is a great model for certain clients and for me as well.

I plan to be more active in the ColdFusion/Adobe community as well as the local tech/entrepreneur scene. The local area here has a lot of potential, and a lot of great people. I hope to make a few announcements in that regard in the near future.

With my new path I also aim to become much more versed in some of the new technology appearing every day. Part of the reason for my change is to give myself more time to learn. I also plan to blog the exciting and boring phases of my journey. I shall be writing about my struggles and triumphs when it makes sense to do so. Most importantly I am keenly interested in experiences of others and their feedback. The road I am taking is not a new one. I seek the wisdom of those who walk this rocky road.

My contact information will also change. My email and IM is now jcyr at joshuacyr.com. Phone is also new, ending in 4143. If you don't already have that new cell number, email/IM me and I will get you the updated details. I have a one page about me site at joshuacyr.com. Oh, and I should mention my new LLC for all of this. Cyr Initiative, LLC

Thanks again for being a part of my journey.

Recently I have been spending a fair amount of time showing off my beautiful city of Portsmouth, NH to family and clients. Today I am putting a not-so-quick summary of my tour/description/lecture to blog form. This way I can point future friends/clients/family to it for reference, and others interested in the area can learn what so many of us locals already know. This will be a resource I update over time, and I look forward to your feedback.

Portsmouth is a small town of approximately 22,000 people. And in my opinion is one of the best places to live in the United States. It has been in multiple magazines as a top place to live, bike, walk, eat, etc. Periodically we hear people say something along the lines of "This town is the next Boulder." or some other similar city. We are on the border of NH. Right across the river from Kittery, Maine. We are also on the coast. Well, technically on the mouth of the river named Piscataqua just a few minutes from the actual ocean. The coastline of NH is under 20 miles, with a few nice public beaches and some great views. We are at the very northern point of it.

While Portsmouth itself is a very small town, we serve as the downtown and cultural center for a much larger community of towns and cities, so the population base is probably closer to 100,000+. Within 20 minutes of Portsmouth are other very lovely small towns such as Kittery, Dover, and Exeter, and are also very close to The University of New Hampshire.

Portsmouth is about an hour away from Boston, skiing, mountain hiking, etc, just and minutes from the beach. It serves as a popular home base for people looking to take advantage of it all.

Food

We have one of the highest per-capita restaurant ratio's in the state, let alone country. Of the restaurants in Portsmouth they range in style, price and spice. I can't possibly list them all, or even list all of my favorites, so instead I am just going to point out a few that suggest the range of offerings available.

Fine Food
Brazo
Black Trumpet
Cafe Mirabelle
The Wellington Room

Pubs (also good food)
The Press Room
Coat of Arms

We also have two breweries in town.
Portsmouth Brewery
Redhook Ale Brewery

Lodging

One of the best parts of Portsmouth is its downtown. It truly is a park once walk everywhere sort of place. Because of this I recommend staying downtown. The prices will be higher, but I think the experience of being downtown more then justifies the price. There are less expensive options though from the typical hotel chains, many of which are right near the highway. Either way, here is a great local site that lists most of them.

What To Do

Events
I suspect that there is some sort of festival or significant event at least once a week in our town. Last week, for example, was the Portsmouth Criterium. This week is Fish Festival and Telluride By the Sea. Next week is a Brewfest. The Halloween Parade is coming right up (which is my favorite event ever). It goes on and on.

Every Day
Portsmouth is home to a number of cultural gems. Performance spaces such as The Music Hall, Seacoast Rep and Players Ring. Parks and Museums such as Strawberry Banke Museum, Seacoast Science Center (right nearby), and Prescott Park. The music scene is strong and multiple bars in town provide live music.

This summer, just a few blocks from my home, I went to readings from Chuck Palahniuk ( author of Fight Club), Stephen King, Justin Cronin and others. I watched more then a few amazing bands on tour such as Ozomatli, and Afro-Cuban Allstars. Went to Telluride By The Sea film festival. Applefest. Hiked 9 4000 foot peaks in the White Mountains. A few cruises down the river and out to the Isle of Shoals, free outdoor performances at Prescott Park, and so much more.

Retail

A lot of people come to town for shopping. For the most part our downtown is home to only local businesses. Very few retail chains. This is pretty important to both locals, and the tourists who come here. Sure, we have malls for when that is needed. But there is a rather strong local business movement here as well, and the local businesses give Portsmouth a great unique flavor.

Just a few places to be sure to check out:
Riverrun Bookstore
G Wilikers Toyshop
Macro Polo
Nahcotta Gallery

Outlet Malls
A very popular place to shop is a long strip of outlet malls just over the bridge in Kittery, Maine.

When

I live here year around, but my favorite two seasons are Summer and Fall. Summer is outstanding time to be on the riverfront restaurants, walking through the gardens and museums and catching shows at Presscot Park. Fall typically offers fantastic weather, wonderful events and plenty of life in downtown. Winter tends to calm things down in town, with the exception of the holidays, in which the town springs back to life rather impressively. Spring just seems to last forever, and while downtown is always nice, wouldn't we just rather Summer happen already?

Business

There are a few areas for businesses in Portsmouth.

Downtown is great for retail, restaurants and smaller businesses. Think 1000 to 3000 square feet. There are not as many office spaces available for larger companies, unless you talk to a developer while they are putting up a new building (which is constantly going on).

For larger businesses, or companies that want to be in a more traditional business park environment there is Pease. Pease is an old Air Force base that was converted a number of years ago. It is booming, offers a lot of employment opportunities and is the Head Quarters to more then a couple businesses now. I suspect space will be limited at Pease in another few years, as growth continues and new buildings are popping up frequently.

Finally, there are office buildings peppered throughout the town. Offering the quaintness of residential mixes, with nice office building amenities. Even some industrial buildings and lots.

Getting Here

We do not currently have a commercial airline serving Portsmouth. We have in the past, and probably will some years in the future. Instead there are two primary airports. Boston, MA and Manchester, NH. Both are between 45 minutes and an hours drive. You can rent a car and drive hear easily enough. Either 95 North, or 101 east. Or take a bus. There is hourly bus service to Portsmouth from Boston area. Though you should note that the bus station in Portsmouth that serves Boson is on the outside of Portsmouth so you will need a shuttle or taxi to get into town.

Housing

If you are looking to move to the area be prepared to pay. Portsmouth is expensive for NH. Both in home prices and in rental prices. What can you expect when everyone wants to live here, have a second home here, etc and we only have space for 22 thousand of you? That said there are many other nice towns very close by. Some of which are even more expensive (ocean views and such) and others much less expensive, with land being more plentiful. Search our regional MLS system. Don't forget you can look into Maine too. Kittery is just over the bridge and walking distance.

Other Resources

Greater Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce
City of Portsmouth

Just wanted to mention my favorite CFBuilder feature this week. I don't see this one mentioned very often.

File Compare

Did you know that you can compare similar files with CFBuilder? Select two files, right click and select Compare With > Each Other. This proved handy this week when I found out a client was changing a file that I had worked on. They both had needed changes and were out of sync. I was quickly able to find the small differences.

Also built in is Compare With > Local History. Very basic versioning, but still handy. I know I have come into work after a 4 day weekend wondering "now where did I leave off last week..."

What are your favorite features which you rarely read others write about?

Just watched Inception and found myself with a few questions regarding the ending. These are spoilers people so DON'T READ unless you have seen the movie. Really.

Regarding my opinion on Inception: I love movies that make me think and want to discuss. So from that end I enjoyed it. I didn't like the uselessness of the female architect (she could have rebuilt the place at will right?). A few minor plot holes maybe, but overall fun and I was engaged the whole movie.

Questions:

Ok so at the end we see the top spinning. Is it about to falter? Does it go on for ever? Two contradictory items of evidence for us to ponder.

1) In the real world, or what we are to think is the real world, the top does in fact stop a few times. It shouldn't if they are not in the real world. Or maybe the top means nothing at all. Just a made up construct. Cobb is the only one to actually use it after all.

2) In the end the kids haven't aged at all and they seem to be wearing the exact same clothes. Are they doing the actual same pose as the dream sequences? Very unlikely to be reality.

So, does the fact the top proved reality before (by falling) but the end it doesn't - mean that he was still in limbo, but a new version (having dealt with his two ghosts)?

Did the movie just cut out too soon and the top was going to fall over (it looked like it could)?

Was this just a metaphor for accession to heaven?

My opinion is that in the end it was a dream. Or at least not reality. Metaphor for navigating through purgatory to get to heaven for committing suicide? Or something along those lines? Or was he actually fine until he got to limbo at the end, in which case he rebuilt it after his wife died to what he wanted.

I had some spare time yesterday and decided to put together what I think is a fun little single page website. It displays a random Chuck Norris fact. The fun part is that you can add your name to the site (or someone else) to make the facts about them.

Check out Chuck Norris Facts vs Betty White Facts vs Ben Nadel Facts for examples. My favorite is Betty White facts so far.

The code is simple. Some CF with ORM. Took about an hour to write the core including the admin module of the facts. In fact it took a lot more time to find facts then it did to code up.

Anyway, comment here if you have suggested Chuck Norris facts to add.