New Tivo HD but it's still broken

So Tivo finally released a HD version of Tivo that mere mortals can actually afford Tivo HD. It looks great. They don't seam to have to have missed out anything from the $800 Series 3 that really matters in this $300 version. Sure the hard drive is smaller but of course that can be upgraded if your tech savy or you can buy one already upgraded from Weaknees and still keep well below the Series 3 price. It's all good and very tempting.

However until the CableCARD 2.0 mess is sorted out it's still a broken solution. Without CableCARD 2.o I will still have to keep (and pay for) my existing cable box so that I can still access Pay-Per-View and OnDemand. So in addition to paying $300 for the box and $8 - $17 for the Tivo service I still have the $12 fee for my existing cable box. But really I just want everything to work with 1 box.

So I'm going to continue to wait impatiently for the Comcast Tivo thats been coming soon for at least 2 years now. Unless CableCARD 2.0 is available before then.

Spa Wars

There's a battle going on out there. It's between the spa dealers, spa owners and Costco. You only have to go to a Spa forum like www.poolspaforum.com to see this battle being waged. Any posts that mention Costco Spas or in particular the Costco Platinum Elite I, II or II which are manufactured by Hydro Spa quickly turn into a holy war. The problem seams to be that Costco is undermining what appears to be an almost 100% markup by the spa dealers. The reaction to this from many spa dealers is attacking the Costco product.

A $4,000 Spa can't be anything close to a $8,000 one... right?
This would seam to be a logical because you don't get anything for free. However it seams like the Spa industry is very much like the PC industry. Most of the components are standard and produced by a very small selection of manufacturers. So Spa's are very modular and a Spa manufacturer just selects from a catalog of components and assembles those to make up their particular spa. Kind of sounds like a bike.

So what does this mean?
My Costco Spa which was around $4,000 has the same features and is made from the same components as many other spas costing double or more from a spa dealer. The jets and plumbing manifolds are from Waterway Plastics. The same for the audio speakers. The pumps are Aqua-Flo and so on. So how can my spa be that different from the others?

It can't all be good.
Of course there are benefits to buying from a dealer. You can go to their showroom and actually try out the Spa's. They will often include delivery and installation (sub-contracted out). You will get help with service and parts later on if you have problems (also sub-contracted out). But don't expect to be able to price compare. Your unlikely to find 2 dealers locally selling the same spa.

The question you have to ask yourself is what is this worth? Are these benefits worth the 100% markup?


I spent $200 for delivery (same guy used by most of the local dealers) and $800 for an electrician to install the electrical supply which is 125 ft from the main electrical panel (most likely more than the standard included by a dealer).


P.S.
I also learned the correct use of the various words people use for Spas.

• Jacuzzi/Whirlpool - Brand names but generally used to refer to indoor bathroom jetted tubs.
• Hot Tub - Essentially just a big tub of hot water with no jets.
• Spa - Outdoors above or below ground with jets etc (what I'm talking about here).
  

UPDATE: New generation of Whole House Fans - Installed Airscape 1.7

So I still haven't bought one but my brother bought 2 of the Airscape 1.7 Whole House Fans. He is the proud owner of a 3,400 sq ft home and a $700/month (summer) electricity bill.

Installation
After a quote for $800 for installation of one of the fans he decided he liked the idea of installing it himself. So he placed an order for the 2 fans on a Friday and received them on the Monday. I went over to give him a hand after work and by the end of that evening we had one of them installed. It took us no more than 4 hours. We like to think of ourselves as being handy but we certainly are not professionals. The installation was very straightforward. We did install it near the attic opening and an existing electrical outlet which eased the installation.

First Impressions
The fans are surprisingly compact but they certainly seam to do the job. His house was down to 72 degrees in no time. Anyone sitting near an open window complained of being cold. The fan is also very quiet and you may wonder if it is on. Certainly nothing like the ratter tat tat and rumble of other Whole House Fans. No one had problems sleeping. Stand underneath it and the draft created will let you know its on.

Does it save money?
It's early days right now. Stay tuned for another update...

Original post New generation of Whole House Fans

Double-DIN car stereo

Like 51% of cars (TWICE Double-DIN Share Gaining) mine came with a Double-DIN sized stereo. This means that it is twice the size of the average after market stereo your probably used to seeing.


Double DIN


Single DIN





What can you stick in that hole?
If you want to replace your stereo you have 2 options. Buy a regular Single DIN stereo + an adapter that usually fills the extra space with a cubby. Otherwise find a Double DIN after market stereo. I think the space may as well be used as intended so Double DIN for me. However there is not much of a selection. You most likely won't find any in Best Buy, etc. Kenwood are the only ones I could find that had up to date features (e.g. MP3 playback rather than a Tape Deck). Kenwood has 4 models to choose from.

What did I get?
I went for the Kenwood DPX-301 as I liked the USB/MP3/WMV feature. This means I can connect any USB drive with any number of MP3 or WMV files and play them back via the stereo. As this is a digital connection the sound quality is great and I don't have to mess around with tuning in a FM radio transmitter. Also the stereo can read all the ID3 tags so that it can display the track, album, artist and genre. An added bonus is that if you fill the drive with the included software utility it also creates voice prompts. So you can navigate all that music while keeping your eyes on the road.

The Kenwood DPX-301 also has the usual features. Single CD player (surely there is room in there for a changer but with MP3's thats a moot point), Radio with RDS (displays station name etc) support for Satellite and HD radio, etc.

It can't be all good
This is a great stereo however it's not that intuitive to use. I challenge anyone to work out how to turn it on/off without the manual. Turns out you can cycle through the sources to standby or hold down the standby button to turn it off. Obvious eh?

The other problem I had was the time it takes to be ready to play from the USB drive. It was painfully long. The solution was to switch from my aging USB 1.o hard drive based MP3 player to a super fast Corsair Flash Voyager USB drive which solved the problem.

Buying a bike - why is it so hard?

Should be easy... right? If you want something cheap you go to Target if you want something a little more durable you go to a bike store. But nothing is ever that easy.

Good luck trying to comparison shop
No two bike stores in your area will have the same brand let alone model of bike making comparison shopping almost impossible. You also won't find any "bike shop bikes" available online for sale or even a mention of the cost. So this means this must be a cozy agreement between the manufacturers and the bike shops. All this sounds like a great deal for the manufacturer and the bike shop but it's bad for the consumer. This undoubtedly keeps the prices nice and high and make research from the comfort of the home PC very hard.

But don't get me wrong I think it's great to have a local store for this kind of product. But is it really necessary to go to these lengths to protect the stores?

You saw a bike from where?
The other problem is the snobbery. Try asking a bike shop about a bike that is sold in a big box store. They won't be too complimentary. But aren't there only about 3 companies that make the components (Shimano, Suntor, SRAM I believe) for all bikes? I don't think there are many companies that actually even manufacturer there own frames. So how much worse can they be? I know they must use the lower end of the manufacturers lines but this doesn't make them incomparable.

So what did I do?
When we first decided we wanted to try biking we started out with some nice cheap ($100 each) Huffy mountain bikes from a big box store. After a couple of years of a reasonable amount of use we traded up.

We budgeted $300 each that compared to what we previously had seamed like a big step to us. We were disappointed when we visited our local bike shops to find that this would only get us one of their most basic bikes.

What we really wanted was the flexibility of a hybrid bike that has the riding position of a mountain bike but many of the components from a road bike. That would be ideal for our mostly paved trail riding and occasional light off road riding (despite being told at one store they were for old people).

Specialized Globe Hybrid

However $300 doesn't get you a "real" hybrid bike but a comfort bike. We found the riding position of comfort bikes too upright and the suspension too soft. They didn't feel like serious bikes to us that we could use for getting fit but more like something to cruise around the neighborhood.

Specialized Crossroads Comfort


So we went for hard tail mountain bikes instead (no rear suspension) but with tires that have a center road ridge. We found good quality hard tail mountain bikes (Diamondback Sorrento) for $300 available at one of our local bike shops.

Diamondback Sorrento
(yes I really did get that color.)

We very much enjoy our bikes especially once we picked up some nicer seats from www.nashbar.com But of course we don't ride them nearly as much as we should.