The bad news with many of these services is that you’re still tethered to the computer when you want to use them.  Hulu and YouTube are designed to be viewed from within a browser.  NetFlix works the same way, although it does offer the Roku NetFlix Player which can be connected directly to your TV (read about that here).

I’ve talked about various ways to be able to watch that content on your television instead of on your PC but, outside of Roku’s NetFlix Player, most of those solutions get pretty complex.  But now there’s a new piece of software out there which may finally allow you to easily watch that web content on your television.  It’s from MediaMall Technologies and its name is PlayOn.  Let’s take a look.

In a previous article I talked about a way to connect devices in your living room to content on your computer using exciting acronyms like UPnP and DLNA and a PC-based UPnP server called TVersity (you can read that post here).   PlayOn works in very much the same way in that it gets installed on your PC as a UPnP server and is able to take an existing video source and convert it into a format that can be displayed on a device which you may already have in your living room.

At the moment PlayOn’s list of supported devices is much smaller than TVersity’s (currently only the Playstation 3, XBox 360, and HP MediaSmart televisions are supported, although the Wii is supposed to be supported by the end of the year).  Also, at least in its initial beta release, the list of source material which can be served up by PlayOn is hard-coded and is limited to content from some of the more popular streaming video web sites (Hulu, YouTube, CBS, CNN, and ESPN).  The ability to stream video from local sources rather than only from internet web sites is expected in a later release.

On the “plus” side the installation of PlayOn is quite easy and the server is already configured for use with the above-mentioned streaming video sites.  TVersity, on the other hand, comes pre-configured with the ability to access YouTube videos but not streams from the other sites. (It’s possible to add additional sources to TVersity but those sources have to present their streams in a format which TVersity can understand.  Currently there is no way to use TVersity to stream videos from Hulu, for instance.)  Also, the makers of PlayOn say that a future release will allow NetFlix users to watch their streams through PlayOn.

At the moment PlayOn only pulls the SD versions and not the HD versions of streams from its online providers.  I’m sure that has to do with the processing power that would be required on the PC side in order to transcode the HD video on-the-fly.   Still, I hope that they make the HD streams an option in a future release so that users with beefy systems can use those better feeds.

So, should you install PlayOn or TVersity?  That’s easy – you should install both.  Although they both act as UPnP servers they have different strengths and weaknesses.  TVersity is a full-featured UPnP server which can handle music and photos in addition to video, gives the user much more control over codecs and transcoding quality, and is compatible with just about every type of media file and UPnP-compliant hardware out there.  PlayOn is simple to install and configure, has instant integration with Hulu and the other streaming video services, and, at some point, will even be able to stream NetFlix content.  Oh, and TVersity is free, while PlayOn will cost you $30 after a 60-day trial period.

If you have a Playstation 3, XBox 360, or you own an HP MediaSmart TV I’d say that you should give PlayOn a good look.  It just may change the way you watch TV (and what you watch on it).

Unfortunately, in order to play those movies you had to use a special plugin for Internet Explorer, and that meant that you had to watch them on a computer.  So, if you’re like me and you wanted to watch those movies on your TV, you had to be able to hook your PC (I used a laptop) up to your television.  It worked, but it wasn’t exactly convenient.

Next came the vmcNetFlix add-in for Media Center (read my post on that here).  This add-in allowed people who were running the Vista version of Windows Media Center to watch the NetFlix streaming videos inside of Media Center instead of through Internet Explorer.  Even better, it allowed people who had Media Center Extenders (like an XBox 360) to stream that content to their TV without having to have a PC in the living room.  That worked better, but it still required a PC (running Media Center) and a set-top box (the XBox 360 or other Media Center Extender).

But now there’s a way to watch NetFlix streaming videos without using a computer at all.  It’s from Roku, and it’s called the NetFlix Player.  Let’s check it out.

The Roku NetFlix Player is a tiny (about the size of a paperback) set-top box that attaches to your home network and outputs video directly to your television.  It allows you to stream NetFlix content and display it directly onto your TV.  No laptops, no Media Center Extenders — nothing is required for video playback except a valid NetFlix membership, a home network with a broadband internet connection, and a television.

Connecting it

The device can connect to either your wired or wireless home network.  The setup procedure for both is quite simple but does require you to have a DHCP server somewhere on your network (just about every home router and wireless access point has this capability turned on by default).  If you’re using the wired connection there really isn’t anything else which needs to be set up.  If you’re using a wireless connection you’ll have to supply the SSID and, for those access point which have been secured, you’ll also have to supply the password during the setup.

Once the NetFlix Player establishes that it can connect to your home network it will check to make sure that it can connect to the internet and, specifically, to the NetFlix website.  If there are no problems it displays a 6-character code.  You have to use a computer to log into your account on the NetFlix website and enter that code which then binds the player to your NetFlix account (a one-time operation).

As as physical connections go the NetFlix player comes equipped with an ethernet connector, composite, s-video, component, and HDMI video connections, RCA-style audio jacks and an optical (Toslink) connector.   If you can’t connect this device to you television it may be time to seriously consider getting a new TV.

Feeding it

While you’re on the NetFlix website make sure that you have at least a few movies in your “Instant” queue.  NetFlix now has two different queues for you — the “DVD” queue, which is where the DVDs which get mailed to your house come from, and the “Instant” queue, which is where you maintain the list of features you’d like to access through the NetFlix Player.  The NetFlix Player will show you all of the items in your Instant queue but doesn’t give you any way to add additional content to that queue so you’ll still need to use a computer to do that.

Using it

The user interface for the NetFlix Player is extremely simple to use.  There a only a few options under the Setup tab, like setting the display type (4:3 or 16:9) and the network connection information.

The Instant Queue tab shows everything which have placed into your “Instant” queue on the NetFlix website.  At this point the interface shows you all of the entries which you’ve entered in the same order that they’re in on the website.  There are no sub-categories like genre (Horror or Drama), type (movie or TV show), or even the ability to search for a particular title by name — just a “flat” listing of all of the content.  If you don’t have many entries in your Instant queue it probably won’t be a problem but if you’re queue is full (you’re allowed 500 entries) then I can see how this may become an issue.  I’m sure that this is an area which Roku will be making some changes.

There are some additional features which make navigating your content a bit easier.  For instance, if you choose a TV series the player will show you all of the episodes on the disc you’ve chosen along with the names of the episodes.  That allows you to just pick one episode instead of having to watch the entire disc.  Overall, the interface is quite attractive, intuitive, and simple to use.

Downloading it

Once you select the video stream you’d like to see things get interesting.  The first thing that happens is the player checks to see what kind of speed you’re getting on your internet connection.   There are a number of factors which can affect your speed, including the maximum bandwidth which you’re allotted by your ISP, other activity on your home network, and, if you’re using a wireless connection, the strength of your wireless signal.

Once the NetFlix Player determines what your bandwidth capabilities are it decides between 4 different streams of different quality offered by the NetFlix streaming servers (0.5Mbps, 1.0 Mbps, 1.6Mbps, and 2.0Mbps).  The idea is that the player want to give you the stream with the highest video quality which your connection to handle but doesn’t want to choose a stream which is going to result in a lot of pauses as it buffers the stream while you’re trying to watch your video.  NetFlix recommends that you have a minimum of a 1.5Mbps connection in order to assure a smooth experience with the NetFlix player.

After the player decides what stream it’s going to use in contact the NetFlix server and asks for that stream.  The player will buffer a bit of the stream before the video starts just in case there are a few network slowdowns or other hiccups while you’re watching your video.  The buffering can take anywhere from about 10 to 30 seconds.  If your connection slows down while you’re watching your video to the point where the player needs to keep buffering the stream it will “dumb” you down to a slower (and lesser video quality) stream.

Judging it

Compared to a DVD the highest quality image is just a bit soft and occasionally shows a tiny bit of pixellation from the encoding process, especially during abrupt scene changes, but even the worst-quality video stream is certainly “watchable”.  The audio is also passable, although at this point the audio for all of the videos is only analog (PCM).  All in all the audio and video quality are quite good, especially considering that the content is being streamed over the internet.

Futureproofing it

That being said, the real promise of this player might will be realized when NetFlix starts serving High Definition content.  Roku has said that their box can handle those HD streams and that they’ll be rolling out a firmware update when NetFlix starts their HD streaming.  They’ve also said that you’ll have to make sure that you’re using the HDMI connection and that your equipment can handle the HDCP copyright protection in order to take advantage of that HD content but, with a very few number of exceptions, every TV that has an HDMI input should meet those requirements.

Wrapping it up

So there it is.  Roku’s NetFlix Player does just what it says it does — it gives you the ability to watch streaming content from NetFlix right there on your television.  The setup is painless, the UI is well-done (if a bit Spartan at this point), and the whole process, from beginning to end, is quite smooth.  Considering that the box only costs $100 and will be able to handle the HD feeds that NetFlix has promised to deliver, if you’ve every wanted to be able to watch video streams on your television instead of on your computer then this is the device that you’ve been waiting for.   Give it a shot — you won’t be disappointed.

One of the main problems with using Watch it Now is that you are required to watch the video content using a special Internet Explorer plugin, and that means that you can only watch that content on a PC instead of on the TV in your living room.  The solution to that problem was to use PC or a laptop which was hooked up directly to your TV.  Now there’s a better solution, and its name is vmcNetFlix.

What is it?

vmcNetFlix is a 3rd-party add-in for the version of Media Center which ships as part of Windows Vista Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate.  This add-in integrates the Watch it Now feature directly into Media Center so that you can watch a video stream from NetFlix as easily as you can view pictures or watch other recorded video.  Even better, the Watch it Now video can be viewed on any Media Center Extenders you may have hooked up to the TV in the living, room, including the XBox 360.

Installing it

In order to use vmcNetFlix you’ll first have to be able to use the “real” Watch it Now feature from NetFlix.  vmcNetFlix doesn’t try to circumvent or duplicate any of the technology that’s used in the plugin supplied by NetFlix — instead, it just uses that plugin from inside of Media Center instead of from within Internet Explorer.  That means that you won’t be able to use vmcNetFlix unless you’ve already installed the Watch it Now IE plugin from the NetFlix website and you know that it’s working properly on the same system which is running your Media Center application.

Once you know that your installation of the NetFlix plugin is working properly you can install the vmcNetFlix application.  The application is designed to work with the version of Media Center which comes with the Premium or Ultimate versions of Windows Vista so if you’re using the XP-era Media Center you won’t be able to take advantage of this add-in.

Using it

After you run the vmcNetFlix installer you’ll have a new choice available to you when you start up Media Center (look under Online Media -> Program Library).  When you pick the vmcNetFlix application for the first time you’ll be prompted for your NetFlix username and password.  vmcNetFlix uses this information to log into the NetFlix website and pull down data about the catalog of videos available for streaming, including their cover art, genre, and descriptions.

The application makes extensive use of the cover art to help make your content quite easy to find.  You can choose from the list of content which you’ve added to your “Instant” queue on the NetFlix website, browse the complete list of available streaming content by genre (Drama, Comedy, TV Shows, etc.), or check out the “Top 50″ list to see what other people are watching.  Once you find the content you’d like to watch just hit “Play” and you’ll be on your way.

Watch it Later

One additional feature of vmcNetFlix which the original Watch it Now plugin doesn’t have is the ability to save the video stream onto your hard drive so that you can play it back at a later time.  While there may be no benefit to doing that If you’re at home and have a working internet connection, it may be a handy feature to those of you who are looking to download content so that you can watch it without being tethered to the internet (like on a laptop while traveling, for instance).

Other Features

While the main goal of vmcNetFlix is to allow you to stream Watch it Now content from within Media Center, the application handles much more than just streaming video.  You can also perform other NetFlix tasks like adding movies to your DVD queue, viewing your rental history, or even seeing what new videos NetFlix recommends for you.  The list of vmcNetFlix features is complete enough that you may never have to go to the NetFlix website again!

Conclusion

If you’re a NetFlix member and you own a computer running Windows Vista Premium or Vista Ultimate you should check out vmcNetFlix.  It provides an easy way to handle most, if not all, of your NetFlix tasks, and also allows you to seamlessly integrate your NetFlix streaming content right into your Media Center.   And if you also happen to have some type of Media Center Extender (remember, the XBox 360 counts here) hooked up to your TV this might be just what you’re looking for –  a way to watch NetFlix videos on your TV instead of on your PC.

So that’s vmcNetFlix — it’s fast, it’s free, it works well, and it may even allow you to watch NetFlix content right in your living room.  Check it out.

In a previous post I’d talked about how to run MythTV, the very popular multimedia software, under Microsoft Windows (you can find that post here). The basic problem is that MythTV only runs under Linux — there’s no such thing as a port of that application to Windows. That previous post talks about how it’s possible to use a virtual machine to set up a Linux virtual machine within a Windows OS so that Windows users can run MythTV, with a few caveats.

Now that I’ve been using andLinux I wanted to see if it was possible to run MythTV on a Windows installation without having to use a virtual machine. It is — and here’s how.

The Basics

First of all, of course, you have to have andLinux installed on your Windows OS. If you’re not really sure what andLinux is or how it’s different that a virtual machine you should read my previous post, “andLinux — an easy way to run Linux applications right on your Windows desktop“.

Installing MythTV

Once you have your andLinux installation up and running you can install MythTV just like you’d install any other Linux application — using Synaptic (for a GUI installer) or using apt-get (from the command line). Once MythTV is installed remember that you first have to run the “mythtv-setup” script, just like you would with any other installation of MythTV.

Some Caveats

Using andLinux to run MythTV under Windows has the same set of limitations that we ran into when we ran MythTV under a virtual machine. Those limitations are a result of the way that andLinux (or our VMWare virtual machine) see the hardware we have in our Windows system.

TV Tuner

The MythTV application running under andLinux has the same problem as it would running under the virtual machine — it has no way of seeing a TV tuner card in your PC. The solution to the problem is the same as it was when we used a virtual machine –use a tuner card which is located on the network instead of a tuner card which is located in a PC. In my case I use the HDHomeRun by Silicon Dust. You can find a more detailed description of that tuner in a post that I’d written here.

Watching Video

Just like the problem with the tuner card, watching video through the MythTV front-end running under andLinux suffers from the same problem as running MythTV from within a virtual machine. In both cases the problem is that the Linux OS isn’t using your graphics card directly; instead, it’s using either a virtual graphics card (in the case of the virtual machine) or an X-Server (in the case of andLinux). In either case there just isn’t enough graphics horsepower to be able to display full-motion video with no choppiness.

There are other ways to view shows which are recorded in MythTV though, and I cover some of the more popular solutions in the previous article I’d written about running MythTV under windows. These solutions may not be as simple as using the MythTV front-end but they will do the job.

Conclusion

Using andLinux to run MythTV is certainly a viable alternative to running MythTV within a virtual machine, especially with the simplified Linux installation made possible by using andLinux. If you’re a Windows user who’s interested in checking our MythTV I think that using andLinux is the simplest way to see what all of the fuss is about.

Recently I’ve been experimenting with a piece of software named andLinux which allows me to run my Linux application from within Windows without using a virtual machine or any other type of emulation. Let’s check it out.

The Promise

andLinux is an application which gives you the ability to run Linux applications right on your Windows desktop. To understand how it does that we’ll first have to look at another piece of software which is at the core of andLinux. That core piece of software is name coLinux.

The Foundation

coLinux is a port of the Linux kernel which has been compiled to run on Windows. That means that it doesn’t have have rely on a virtual machine to be able to run on Windows — the kernel itself runs like any other Windows application. Because it’s a Windows application that means that it has access to your system’s CPU, memory, and hard drives. Don’t worry, though — coLinux was written to run cooperatively with Windows, not as a competitor. You choose how much of your physical memory you want coLinux to be able to use and what type of access (if any) to your hard drive you’d like to grant to it.

The Packaging

andLinux takes this coLinux kernel, bundles in a bunch of Linux applications, and wraps it into an easy-to-install package. For instance, the basic coLinux installation doesn’t include any type of graphical display ability. That means that if you had installed only coLinux and wanted to be able to use something other than the console (command line) you’d have to install and configure either some type of X-server (to run the apps locally in some sort of GUI) or a VNC server (to connect remotely and run the apps in a VNC desktop). andLinux saves you all of that trouble and automatically installs and configures the XMing X-Server. It also handles configuring its own connection to your PC’s network adapter by installing a virtual network adapter (called TAP-win32) and its own connection to your PC’s sound card using a utility called PulseAudio.

Running your Linux Applications

Once you’ve installed andLinux you can open any of the bundled Linux applications just like you would open any of your Windows applications (your Linux applications don’t appear under the Windows “Start” menu — they’re started from the andLinux KDE icon running in the system tray). If there are additional Linux applications you’d like to install you can just use the included Synaptic installation program, just like you would use in any other “normal” KDE Linux installation. Nothing special need to be done to install or configure those additional applications (with very few exceptions). Open Synaptic, choose the application you’d like to install, and Synaptic will do the rest.

Accessing your Windows files

It’s up to you to decide how much of your Windows file system you’d like to expose to andLinux. By default your Linux applications won’t be able to see any of the Windows files or directories on your hard drive. If you’d like to be able to easily copy files between Windows and your Linux apps you can use the included COFS or Samba packages to access your Windows shares from within your Linux OS.

Where’s the OS?

andLinux uses a kind of virtual file system to store the Linux OS and all of the Linux applications. This virtual file system is located under the Windows directory where you’ve installed andLinux. The file “base.drv” contains the OS and the applications (about 4GB when you initially install andLinux) and the file swap.drv contains the swap file used by the Linux OS. As you add and remove applications the size of the base.drv file changes accordingly. The Linux applications can only see this file system, not your Windows file system.

Benefits of andLinux

There are a number of ways to run Linux applications under a Windows OS. As I’d mentioned before, you can use VMWare to create a complete virtual machine and run your Linux OS within that machine. Alternatively, you can use a tool called Cygwin which acts as a kind of emulator and will translate many of your Linux OS calls to their equivalent Windows OS calls.

While both of these solutions are effective, neither can match andLinux in the areas of speed and simplicity. andLinux is lightning-fast because it doesn’t have to go through the emulation or translation steps required by VMWare or Cygwin to execute its Linux calls. Remember — the Linux kernel which it uses is already a Windows executable.

Not only is andLinux fast — it’s also easy to set up and use. The installation package only asks you a few questions and handles everything else on its own. Once you’ve installed andLinux your Linux apps are right there on your desktop, not in their own virtual machine or VNC connection. Need to edit a file? Now you can simply choose between Notepad or WordPad or their KDE equivalents, KWrite and Kate. Want to open a browser? You can choose between IE or the KDE browser, Konqueror. andLinux allows your Windows applications and your Linux applications to run side-by-side on your Windows desktop.

Conclusion

So that’s andLinux. If you’re a Windows user and you’d like a simple way to play around with Linux give andLinux a shot. Who knows — you just might find some Linux applications that work better than their Windows counterparts, or even some interesting applications which don’t have any Windows counterparts. If you’re a Linux user who’s forced to use a Windows machine this may be just what you need to run those Linux applications without having to go through the hassle of dual-booting or installing a virtual machine.

andLinux is free, it’s fast, it’s simple, and it works. Check it out.

These days just about everything used in a home theater, from DVD players to video game consoles to amplifiers to the televisions themselves, is some type of computer. Because they are computers, many of these devices have capabilities far beyond their originally intended purpose. D-Link, for example, makes a line of DVD players which can also play videos stored on your PC, and DirecTV’s DVR can be used to listen to your music collection.

Like anything else that deals with technology, though, these devices don’t always play nicely together. Many of the devices have special quirks or requirements that make it difficult for them to interact with each other and trying to overcome those obstacles can be a frustrating process. That’s where TVersity come into the picture. Let’s check it out.

TVersity is a free application which can take just about any multimedia source (photos, music, video) as its input and can convert it on the fly to just about any multimedia format. We’ll use a problem I ran into as a real-world example to help understand why that’s necessary and how it all works.

Learning through Example

My main TV is located in my living room and is connected to a DirecTV DVR box. The latest version of the firmware for my DVR allows me to stream video from other locations in my house so that I can watch those videos on my TV. The problem I have is that the DVR can only handle video which is in the mpeg format and I have a fairly large library of videos which are in other formats (like avi, flv, wmv, xvid, and divx). TVersity allows me to watch all of those videos through my DVR by converting all of the my videos to the mpeg format which my DVR expects. How?

Understanding UPnP and DLNA

Before we can understand how TVersity works we’ll have to have indulge in a little bit of alphabet soup. UPnP stands for “Universal Plug and Play” and DLNA stands for “Digital Living Network Alliance”. Catchy names, aren’t they? DLNA is really just UPnP with a tighter set of rules regarding audio and video — for our purposes they mean pretty much the same thing so we’ll just treat them that way and call the whole thing “UPnP”.

The whole idea behind UPnP was to come up with a standard where different types of multimedia devices could talk to each other and exchange content over a home network. Devices which can display content are called “renderers” and devices which can provide content are called “servers”. In my example my DVR box is a UPnP renderer and the TVersity software running on my PC is a UPnP server.

When a UPnP device (in this case my DVR) first accesses my network it identifies itself to all of the other UPnP devices on the network. This introduction is known as the “discovery” phase. As part of that discovery phase the device also tells those other UPnP devices what its basic capabilities are. In the case of my DVR it says something like “Hi. I’m a UPnP renderer, my model number is HR20-100, and I’m capable of playing music, displaying photos, and playing video.” (Needless to say, that’s not an exact translation.) At that point the UPnP servers respond to the introduction and tell the DVR something like “I’m a UPnP server and I have some music, photos, and video which I can send to you.”

Filling in the Gaps

Although the UPnP discovery phase lets my DVR know where to go to get its content, it doesn’t paint a complete picture of what the DVR really needs. You’ll note that my DVR said “I can play video”, but what it really needed to say was “I can play video, but it needs to be in mpeg format.” That’s where TVersity comes into play.

TVersity maintains its own catalog of different UPnP enabled devices and their capabilities. In my case when my DVR says that it’s an HR20-100 TVersity looks up that device’s capabilities and sees that the video needs to be encoded into an mpeg format. Although TVersity comes with a long list of supported devices there are more and more UPnP devices appearing every day. If you happen to own a device which isn’t in TVersity’s list you can always just add its information to TVersity’s catalog (an xml file named “profiles.xml”).

Delivering the Goods

At this point TVersity has all of the information it needs to send the video I’ve requested to my DVR. It accomplishes this by transcoding the video from one format (let’s say that it’s a wmv video file) to another format (the mpeg stream which my DVR needs). My DVR doesn’t know that any of this is happening — it just thinks that the UPnP server it’s connected to (TVersity) has some mpeg video files that it’s making available. How that’s accomplished showcases another aspect of TVersity’s power.

TVersity handles this transcoding by making use of a library of codecs which it installs as part of the normal TVersity installation. We can think of these codecs as the engine which TVersity uses to translate the wmv file on my PC to the mpeg stream required by my DVR. Although TVersity has the necessary codecs to handle transcoding the most common file types out of the box there are additional codecs available on the TVersity web site to handle just about any other video format.

Using those Cores

Transcoding a video file can be a very CPU-intensive operation. Fortunately, TVersity is a multi-threaded application, meaning that it can take advantage of the processing power available in the newer dual-core (or even quad-code) processors by splitting up the workload across all of the available cores. In my case TVersity is capable of using my quad-code Intel Q6600 CPU to transcode high definition wmv files (720p) to high definition mpeg files without ever pushing my CPU above 50% utilization. There are many factors which dictate how much CPU is required, including the format and resolution of both the incoming and outgoing streams, so your mileage may vary.

Configuring TVersity

Configuring TVersity is a pretty straight-forward process. You have to tell TVersity where to go to find your multimedia (audio, video, and photos) files. Those locations can be on the PC where TVersity is running or through a network share. TVersity also gives you the ability to grab additional content from the internet (like YouTube videos or your favorite podcasts).

If you happen to be using a rendering device which TVeristy supports out-of-the-box you’re pretty much done at that point. If not, you’ll have to make some changes to the profiles.xml file to tell TVersity how your device is going to introduce itself and what requirements it has when it comes to consuming media.

Getting Started

There are more and more devices appearing on the market which have UPnP/DLNA capabilities built in, and just about any of these can use TVersity. These devices include everything from DVRs (like my DirecTV box) to DVD players to televisions. If you’ve purchased a home theater component over the last few years you may already have one of these devices in your living room. Do you own a Wii, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Sony PSP, or even an Apple iPhone? Those devices are all capable of accessing media through TVersity, too.

Even if you don’t have a UPnP device in your living room you can still use TVersity on your computer. TVersity itself includes a UPnP client so you can browse your multimedia library and play content right within the application. Other software, like the ShowTime component of Nero’s DVD burning suite, can also act as a UPnP client.

Wrapping it Up

So that’s TVersity. TVersity allows you to sit in your living room and access the photos, music, and video which are stored on your computer or available through the internet. It’s free for personal use, it’s easy to use, and it does what it’s supposed to do. Check it out.

If you have a laptop computer and a desire to simplify your stargazing you can make your experience a lot easier with Stellarium. How? Let’s take a look.

Stellarium is a free piece of software which can display just about everything you’ll find in the night sky. Unlike a star atlas, just about everything you see in Stellarium is customizable. That lets you set up Stellarium to display exactly what you see when you look towards the heavens.

The first thing you’ll have to do when you start up Stellarium is to tell it what you current location is. Once you tell Stellarium where you are it will show you what the sky looks like from that exact vantage point. You can tell Stellarium that you have some light pollution and that you don’t want it to display any objects more faint than a certain magnitude (for instance, “+3″). You can even choose the horizon which best matches your viewing location (trees, an empty field, or even the beach), or simply take a look at what the sky would look like if there was no horizon.

Stellarium also gives you a number of options when it comes to displaying the constellations. You can toggle the star names and constellations outlines on and off, or you can opt for the full artistic effect.

Stellarium contains a complete catalog of just about every object of interest in the night sky. Clicking on an object reveals a bunch of information, including the object’s name, magnitude, exact location, and distance. You can also zoom in to get a closer look at an object. If the object happens to be a planet like Jupiter you can zoom in far enough to see the moons revolving around the planet, with their relative positions rendered in real time, looking exactly as they would look if you looked through a telescope.

You can use that same catalog to find a specific object by its name. Start typing the name of the object and Stellarium will come up with a list of possible targets. Select the target you’re interested in, click “Go”, and you’re there.

One of the more interesting features of Stellarium is its “Time Travel” feature. Remember, all of the views in Stellarium are rendered in real time, so if you watch the display long enough you can watch the stars and planets rise and set. You can also press the fast-forward and rewind button to speed things up a bit. Pressing either of those buttons a second time speeds the action up even more. Click five times and time passes at the rate of about one day every ten seconds. It’s like having your very own flux capacitor.

So the next time that you look up at the night sky and wonder what constellations you can see or you see a bright object and wonder if you’re looking at a planet or a star, grab your laptop, fire up Stellarium, and find out.

There are shows on television which are entertaining and there are shows on television which are educational. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you can find a show that’s both entertaining and educational at the same time. MythBusters is one of those shows.

After watching the show for a few years I’ve come to realize that MythBusters does more than just entertain and educate — it also has taught me some valuable lessons about life itself. Here, then, are the things I’ve learned about life by watching MythBusters:

1. If you want to make your life more exciting you should befriend a retired FBI agent.
2. Everyone on MythBusters has a chance to get promoted. Even Buster, through years of hard work and self-sacrifice without complaint, was somehow able to rise through the ranks from a lowly “crash test dummy” to a much more impressive-sounding “human analogue”.
3. Never trust Adam to give you the odds on anything.
4. The easiest way to sell an old car that nobody wants is to invent a myth about it and wait for the show to buy it from you.
5. The MythBusters can control anything using a remote control except, ironically, a remote-controlled helicopter, which they simply crash.
6. Grant really doesn’t want anyone to take his calculator.
7. If you can’t reproduce the myth try to reproduce the results. If you can’t reproduce the results just blow something up.
8. The word “MythTern” really means “menial task person”.
9. If you ever lose control of your car try to make sure that it doesn’t plunge into a raging river — instead, in order to improve your odds of survival, lose control of it in such a way that it gets gently lowered into a shallow swimming pool.
10. Even the most mundane tasks can become more exciting if you say the magic words “In 3… 2… 1…” before you do them.

An OpenID Refresher

OpenID is a distributed system which allows users to log into an OpenID-enabled web site using an OpenID URL instead of the traditional username/password combination. The idea is that a user can choose their OpenID provider and use that provider to log into any OpenID-enabled site. Think of it as a way to allow a web site to outsource its login procedure to a third party.

Using your own web page

The way we’re able to use our own web page URL instead of our OpenID provider’s URL is by adding an extra “hop” to the whole OpenID authentication process. You’ll remember from the original post about how OpenID works that the normal flow of an OpenID logon goes like this:

• The user navigates to an OpenID-enabled web site (like http://wikitravel.org)
• Instead of entering a normal username/password combination, the user enters his OpenID username (like techwandering.myopenid.com)
• The web site parses the OpenID username and redirects the user to their OpenID provider (in this case, to http://myopenid.com)
• The user logs into his account at the OpenID provider
• After successfully logging in the user gets bounced back to the original web site (http://wikitravel.org)
• The user is now logged in

An Example

Using the example above, let’s say that I have an OpenID account named “techwandering” at the OpenID provider myopenid.com. That would make my OpenID login “techwandering.myopenid.com”. I could go to any OpenID-enabled web site (like WikiTravel.org) and use that URL to log into the site. Although that URL works, it’s a bit “wordy”. Since I can edit pages on the TechWandering web site I can set make a change to the main page which will allow me to use the URL “techwandering.com” to log into my “techwandering.myopenid.com” OpenID account using an OpenID feature called delegate.

To do that we’ll have to add a bit of code into the HTML of the main page of TechWandering. The code goes into the <head> section of the page, and it looks like this:

<link rel=”openid.server” href=”http://www.myopenid.com/server” />
<link rel=”openid.delegate” href=”http://techwandering.myopenid.com” />

Here’s the flow of our OpenID login now (the additional steps are in bold):

• The user navigates to an OpenID-enabled web site (like http://wikitravel.org)
• Instead of entering a normal username/password combination, the user enters his OpenID username. In this case I’ll enter the URL “techwandering.com”.
• The web site parses the OpenID username and redirects the user to their OpenID provider (in this case, to http://techwandering.com)
• The web site at techwandering.com does not indicate that it’s an OpenID provider. At this point the OpenID processor at WikiTravel looks for the two <link> tags listed above. The first <link> tag tells the WikiTravel server what OpenID server to use to process the login. The second <link> tag tells the OpenID server what username “techwandering.com” actually translates to at that provider.
• The user is redirected to the “real” OpenID provider (myopenid.com)
• The user logs into his account at the OpenID provider
• After successfully logging in the user gets bounced back to the original web site (http://wikitravel.org)
• The user is now logged in.

Use any page

The nice thing about this approach is that I’m not limited to using the root page of my web site. Instead of using “techwandering.com” as my OpenID login I can use a subdirectory under that root — for instance, I can use “techwandering.com/frank” or “techwandering.com/ralph”, or even “techwandering.com/george/myopenidpage.html”. As long as you can edit the HTML of a page you can use that page as your OpenID username.

Change OpenID providers without changing your OpenID login

Using this OpenID redirection approach also gives me additional flexibility when it comes to choosing my OpenID provider. In our example I’ve logged into WikiTravel using the OpenID “techwandering.com”, which actually translates to the OpenID “techwandering.myopenid.com”. The WikiTravel web site knows me by my “techwandering.com” name, and any preferences I set at that site are linked to that username. Let’s say that, at some point in the future, the folks at myopenid.com decide that they’re no longer going to be OpenID providers. If I had an account at WikiTravel tied directly to my techwandering.myopenid.com account I wouldn’t be able to log into my WikiTravel account any more. But since I used techwandering.com as my OpenID name I can just create another OpenID account at another OpenID provider and change the code in the <link> tags on my web page to point to that new provider instead of to myopenid.com. The next time I log into WikiTavel it bounces me through my new provider instead of through the old provider. From WikiTravel’s perspective I’m still logged in as techwandering.com, regardless of what my underlying OpenID provider turned out to be.

Some Examples

Remember, the values in the <link> tags of our example tell the OpenID processor two things:

<link rel=”openid.server” href=”http://www.myopenid.com/server” />
<link rel=”openid.delegate” href=”http://techwandering.myopenid.com” />

The first link above tells the OpenID processor where to go to find the OpenID provider. The second link tells the processor what the full OpenID username is going to be when the user gets to that OpenID provider. Here are two examples using other OpenID providers:

using Verisign Labs (http://pip.verisignlabs.com) as an OpenID provider:

<link rel=”openid.server” href=”https://pip.verisignlabs.com/server” />
<link rel=”openid.delegate” href=”http://techwandering.pip.verisignlabs.com” />

using SignOn (http://signon.com) as an OpenID provider:

<link rel=”openid.server” href=”https://www.signon.com/openidProcessing.action” />
<link rel=”openid.delegate” href=”https://techwandering.signon.com” />

Conclusion

If you’re a user of OpenID and you own some sort of web page go ahead and try out using that page as your OpenID identifier — it makes remembering your OpenID easier and it insulates you from being bound to a specific OpenID provider. And that makes an already open system even more “open”.

What is DNS?

When you want to access a website you open a browser, type in the name of the website (www.techwandering.com, for instance), and you get a page back from that website. What most people don’t realize is that the name of the website (www.techwandering.com) is really just a nickname. The real name of the server which runs TechWandering is its IP address, and that looks something like this: “123.123.123.123″. Not too easy to remember, is it? That’s why the inventors of the internet came up with the idea of DNS (”Domain Name System”). Basically, a DNS translates the friendly name of a website into that site’s IP address. You can think of a DNS server as the internet’s phonebook.

What is OpenDNS?

OpenDNS is a group of DNS servers on the internet which act as a replacement for the DNS run by your internet provider. Not only does OpenDNS provide the same basic functions as the one from your ISP, it does it faster and it adds some additional features.

Increased Speed

Using OpenDNS instead of the DNS provided by your ISP will probably make websites load faster. How is it possible that OpenDNS is faster than the DNS provided by your ISP? The reasons have to do with the way OpenDNS is designed.

First of all, OpenDNS has servers positioned all over the globe. When you make a DNS request you’re sent directly to the DNS server which is nearest to your physical location. Your ISP probably has one location which it uses for DNS resolution and if that one location isn’t near you you’ll have to hop across the internet a few times to reach that server.

To make matters even worse, most ISPs don’t maintain a complete list of all internet addresses themselves. If you ask for a website name that’s not in your ISP’s “phonebook” you’ll be sent to yet another DNS server to resolve that server’s name. OpenDNS, on the other hand, maintains the complete DNS directory on its servers. Not only does OpenDNS have the complete “internet phonebook”, its servers actually cache all of the DNS entries in memory instead of on disk for additional speed.

Security

How can OpenDNS possibly provide additional security?

By now you’ve probably heard of “phishing” sites. These are website which are designed to look like legitimate sites but are really out there just to trick you into revealing some important information (for instance, your credit card number). The phishing attack typically begins when a user receives a fake e-mail from a supposed well-known source such as Bank of America. The e-mail will usually say something like “There’s been a problem with your account, please click here to log in and fix the problem”. The link in the e-mail doesn’t really point to Bank of America, though — it points to the fake website which was set up to look just like the Bank of America site. If you click on the link in the e-mail and enter your username and password you’ve just given the bad guys access to your accounts.

OpenDNS helps to protect you from those types of websites by maintaining a list of known phishing sites. If you click on a link that’s sending you to “www.badguyswebsite.com” instead of “www.bankofamerica.com” OpenDNS will alert you to the fact that “www.badguyswebsite.com” is a known phishing site. OpenDNS works with a number of different security organizations to make sure that this list of known phishing sites is complete and up-to-date.

Additional benefits for users without OpenDNS accounts

You can use OpenDNS without registering on the OpenDNS website and setting up an account for yourself. You’ll still get the benefits of increased surfing speed and security, as will as a few other features. For instance, if you mis-type the name of the website you’re trying to reach (www.craigslist.og instead of www.craigslist.org, for instance) OpenDNS will make an educated guess and try to send you to the proper site. If it can’t determine where you were trying to go it will display a Google-like page of possible destinations. That page includes some ads, and it’s by displaying those ads that OpenDNS makes its money.

Extra benefits for users with OpenDNS accounts

If you create an account for yourself on the OpenDNS site you can take advantage of even more services such as using OpenDNS to block adult sites and/or other sites which you deem as inappropriate, setting up shortcuts for sites which you visit often (”wsj” instead of wallstreetjournal.com), and maintaining your own list of blacklist and/or whitelist sites.

Setting up your OpenDNS takes a little bit of work, although the instructions on the OpenDNS website are very easy to follow. When you register an account on OpenDNS you have to supply the IP address of your local network. If you have a static IP address from your ISP you can just tell OpenDNS what that IP address is and you’ll be done. If you have a dynamic IP address you’ll have to use an additional tool to keep the OpenDNS servers notified of your current IP address. The help system at OpenDNS has a very good explanation of how to set that up.

Using OpenDNS

There are two ways to start using OpenDNS and the instructions on the OpenDNS website do a fantastic job of walking you through each of them.

The first way to implement OpenDNS is to just set up your computer’s network settings to point to the OpenDNS servers for name resolution instead of to your ISP’s DNS servers. The directions on the OpenDNS site will walk you through the steps for your particular operating system.

The second way to implement OpenDNS is for users who have multiple computers behind some sort of router. Rather than setting the DNS settings on each computer you can just set the DNS settings on the router and all of the computers behind that router will use OpenDNS for name resolution. Once that’s done all of your computers will inherit all of benefits of OpenDNS.

Conculsion

If you use the internet you should do yourself a favor and check out OpenDNS. It’s fast, it’s safe, it’s easy to set up, and it’s free. You can’t ask for much more than that.