September 28, 2004

The Beginning

I'm going to start a car computer project soonish. As a pre-cursor, I'm building a tiny htpc (home theater pc). We needed an extra place for file storage anyway. So this little machine is going to serve as both a file server and as the launching point for enjoying our music and video files.

Got a Mini-ITX board ($162) from Fry's last Saturday. A bit of drama with the memory. Settled with a 1 GB stick of generic DDR400 ($149). Caught a 200GB Seagate harddrive with a decent rebate ($70 after rebate). Had an extra power supply laying around. Temporarily pilfered a floppy drive and a CD drive from my other computer to install stuff. Later realized that I needed things like a power switch and some wires connected to jumpers ($10).

Jocelyn managed to get a cool metal moon cake box from Ranch 99. I went there the next day and got a whole ton - different brand, though. That lady is really nice. We're going to go to the Foster City Ranch 99 all the time now.

Sunday was spent installing stuff. Man, that was a pain. Windows 2000 Pro won't recognize the whole drive during install (only 128 GB). Using the CD that came with the drive, had to format the drive on my other computer first. But I couldn't figure out how to get the TV out to work.

Got that to work tonight, though. Didn't know what other ppl were talking about when they said "tab". I didn't see any special program installed with VIA drivers. To get it to work, you have to right click on the desktop, select the customize option, click on the settings tab, and click on advanced. Then click on the tabs until you see a screen with two monitor icons (Monitor and TV). It's obvious from there.

Watched an ep of FMA. Beautiful. The picture's great! Was afraid the output to the TV wouldn't be very good. Reading the regular sized text on the TV, like file names, is really difficult, though. Even at 640x480. I'm planning on writing up a quick and dirty app that let's you browse directories and launch programs. Big fonts and the ability to use a remote (after I add an IR receiver, mostly only needing up/down/left/right/enter to navigate) will be the key features around which everything else revolves.

Posted by kstroke at September 28, 2004 12:28 AM
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The front section of that 99 Ranch has become the Baskin-Robbins of mooncakes -- I didn't know there were so many flavors for the fillings!

I want to see your home theater PC sometime. You should post a pic of your setup. I was half-heartedly contemplating building one too. Would be nice to play my anime stockpile on a TV.

Posted by: kuoj at September 28, 2004 06:09 PM

you forgot to mention free! the mooncake tin boxes were free! (the ladies were giving out food samples and i asked them for the box the mooncakes came in.)

Posted by: jocy at September 28, 2004 01:09 PM