End-user perspective on small office tools & technology

Going Back to Analog For TV Sound

If you listen to all the hype in advertising for just about everything you’d think that something “digital” is just plainly better than any analog equivalent. Digital Cable TV is better than old cable TV. Digital phone service is better than traditional phone service. Digital television (DTV) is better than analog TV, right?

This is not necessarily correct. It’s funny how the collective common wisdom is impacted as much by the frequency of occurence of a message as the validity of its content. Here’s a case in point.

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First Look: Amazon Unbox on TivoHD

As I’ve mentioned before we have a TivoHD PVR unit and we LOVE it. It’s one of the few things that we give an unqualified recommendation. It’s great. Best in class. You won’t regret the purchase.

However, one thing that TivoHD can’t accommodate is pay-per-view movies. It’s not so much that Tivo can’t handle it as much as the cable companies don’t currently have the infrastructure to do pay-per-view for any cable card device. It requires two way interactive cable cards that aren’t yet rolled out. This is a bit of a drag since my wife used to use pay-per-view enough to make me wince every time I saw the cable bill.

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Successful VOIP Over DSL, Part 5: Power Considerations

One of the great things about the traditional PSTN is that it keeps working when the power goes out. I’ve repeatedly read others recommending that people sustain traditional POTS service at least in part because of this fact. Their theory being that VOIP service isn’t sustained during a power outage. But this need not be the case given just a little forethought.

Prior to migrating to Asterisk we had been using a Panasonic KX-TG4000 KSU (seen left). This phone system has four FXO interfaces for analog lines.

It also featured a built-in battery backup so our phones stayed up through power outages. In migrating to VOIP within our home and office I felt it necessary to strive for this kind of reliability. It has certainly made my wife happier.

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When The Lights Go Down

A couple of days ago Garrett Smith posted on his blog entry stating, “One More Reason Pure VoIP is Not The Way to Go.” He goes on to describe a weather event that took out his power, internet access, and therefore his VOIP service.

I was born in the Niagara Region on the Canadian side of the border. I lived for 15 years in Toronto as well as 10 years in deep Northern Ontario. I’ve known winter in all its majesty.

In my former life as a kite enthusiast I made the drive from Buffalo, NY to Erie, PA through many a winter storm. And they certainly do get blasted from time-to-time in that part of the country.

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