The Shifting Goalpost

Finally, I gave up my reluctance against HTPC, shared media around house, NAS in a home etc. and decided to do get started on a project to take a leap in that direction. Problem: 2 external hard disks, 1 old eMac desktop computer, 1 Macbook Pro (MBP) and an old TV. I want to use the MBP to play my HD movies stored on the external hard disks on the old TV.

eMac is wired to the wireless router. External hard disks are connected to the eMac. So sharing the hard disks makes it (and the movies) available on the wireless network that serves the MBP. But this requires the eMac to be on all the time which is a waste of electricity. Actually it should be ON for the MBP to access the files. And then it can be turned OFF. But physically turning it ON/OFF is painful. I was aware of the wake on lan feature and decided to give it a try. A utility WakeOnLan is available from ReadPixel which allows a similar thing - instead of ON/OFF one can Wake/Sleep a computer on the network. And getting this done was a small source of joy.

The last part is not going to be that simple. For playing a movie on the old TV using the MBP is going to be a challenge (£15 + a few couple more) as I could only find Apple makes the DVI to S-video/RGB cable. There are loads of DVI to HDMI options but no S-video/RGB and hence connecting to “old” TV is a problem. Now, the challenge is spend £15 for the DVI to S-video or £600+ for a new TV and the connector. The later option looks so tempting!!! I am not going for the S-video cable right now.

I used to cringe whenever I heard/read comics being referred as Graphic Novels (I thought that term was redundant). But then I came across the fantastic Sandman and I can say that comics and Graphic Novels are two different entities. There is no superhero by the name Sandman (at least not in the two volumes I read in last couple of weeks). It is a “a comic book for intellectuals.” See the Wikipedia entry for more details.

Will start updating regularly from this week. At least one friend cares and hence this update.