For years, I have been searching for the perfect fog-free mirror. They all turned out to be the same general design. A plastic mirror with some kind of treatment that is supposed to repell steam. In fact, I think they are all made by the same company and distributed under different names by different resellers. They work for about 6 months and then they're useless. And they cost a fortune -- $40. Click here for an example. It does have a clock and silly LED light.
But that all ended when I went to the Container Store in Denver. They have a mirror that is based on simple physics. It has a funnel at the top that you use to fill the space behind the mirror with hot water. The water heats the mirror and there is no condensation. Brilliant! And it only cost $10. Brilliant!
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
A Great DirecTV Hidef Upgrade
I have read lots and lots of articles about how bad things go when the DirecTV installer comes to upgrade their service to hidef with the new hidef DVR. I had a great install experience today.
Steve with ImpactDirect arrived at about 8:30am. I have a flat roof with a small platform that is built up for installation a satellite dish. That is where the existing Phase III is installed. He told me that the platform was not big enough for the Slimline + monopoles. He and I surveyed the roof and determined that the dish could be mounted on one of the parapet walls near the platform. The previous installer didn't install grounding blocks even though the ground wire was there and I never got around to doing it. So I pointed it out and Steve said he would take care of it.
I came down off the roof and Steve got to work. A little bit later he came down and said the provided lag bolts weren't long enough and he had to go get some. I told him that while he was gone I would be happy to hookup the HR20. We went to his truck and discovered that he had grabbed an R15 lowdef DVR off the rack. Uh-oh, now I'm worried. He called somebody and they met him at the hardware store with the HR20. He was back in 30 minutes. Sweet!
He went back up to mount and aim the dish while I did the hookup. He came down, installed the new WB68 multiswitch, turned on the HR20 and activated it. He checked the signal strength, checked that all the channels worked and he was done.
There was one anomally though with the HR20. I could only record from sat tuner. I'm worried again. I rebooted and it was fine. Hmm, I'll have to keep an eye on that. While I was playing with it, a message popped up that there was new software. I approved the download. It took <30 minutes to download, install and reboot a couple times. Sweet!
I'm now at version 018A of the software. With the previous version (015C), it kept kicking over to 480i over HDMI. This is not what I paid for. I want my hidef! 018A seems to have fixed this problem. Sweet!
Steve with ImpactDirect arrived at about 8:30am. I have a flat roof with a small platform that is built up for installation a satellite dish. That is where the existing Phase III is installed. He told me that the platform was not big enough for the Slimline + monopoles. He and I surveyed the roof and determined that the dish could be mounted on one of the parapet walls near the platform. The previous installer didn't install grounding blocks even though the ground wire was there and I never got around to doing it. So I pointed it out and Steve said he would take care of it.
I came down off the roof and Steve got to work. A little bit later he came down and said the provided lag bolts weren't long enough and he had to go get some. I told him that while he was gone I would be happy to hookup the HR20. We went to his truck and discovered that he had grabbed an R15 lowdef DVR off the rack. Uh-oh, now I'm worried. He called somebody and they met him at the hardware store with the HR20. He was back in 30 minutes. Sweet!
He went back up to mount and aim the dish while I did the hookup. He came down, installed the new WB68 multiswitch, turned on the HR20 and activated it. He checked the signal strength, checked that all the channels worked and he was done.
There was one anomally though with the HR20. I could only record from sat tuner. I'm worried again. I rebooted and it was fine. Hmm, I'll have to keep an eye on that. While I was playing with it, a message popped up that there was new software. I approved the download. It took <30 minutes to download, install and reboot a couple times. Sweet!
I'm now at version 018A of the software. With the previous version (015C), it kept kicking over to 480i over HDMI. This is not what I paid for. I want my hidef! 018A seems to have fixed this problem. Sweet!
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