Hopefully, with this post I am launching myself again.

I recently picked up a Pioneer XMP3 to replace my broken Pioneer Inno. These two portable XM receivers are made by the same company however, the software on the older Inno handled scheduled recording much better. The XMp3 touts that it can record five channels at once. Yes, it can but you can never get those recordings off your unit. So, if you leave Auto Record set to “on” when you first activate the radio it will fill up in a matter of hours. The XMp3 also has an issue with it’s recording schedule. You can’t power down or move the radio once you have a recording schedule programmed in. Not very portable. I did not have either issue with my Inno. This begs the question, “Pioneer, when are you going to fix this with a new firmware release?”

Bottom line is this. If I had a choice I would go with the Inno until Pioneer decides to fix the numerous issues with the XMp3.

I have had my HTC Hero for about three months now. At first I was not totally sold on the Google Android platform. But I am here to tell you that I am extremely please with. The phone itself is great. Functionality is smooth and the interface is very user friendly.

Where it all falls apart is the software that is supposed to sync the phone to your Outlook on your computer. Well, i have tried to install it on numerous computers without success. Contacting HTC and Sprint did not help me at all. A majority of the online forums suggested that I wipe my machine clean and re-install the OS. Really, for a syncing program or the drivers themselves? So, it appears that if I need put anything on the phone I need to remove the SD card. I guess there really is no motivation for either company to resolve this issue.

I recently picked-up a Synology DS 209. What a wonderful little NAS box this thing is. I dropped two 1 TB SATA drives into the unit and set-up was in less than ten minutes. This of course does not count the time required to format both the drives. The ajax powered Admin control panel is simple yet powerful. One of the best options for me about this box was the fact that there is a built-in iTunes server. So much easier to share the media amongst the family. I only say 5 out of 5 stars for this piece of hardware from my experience.

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Now the Stever is back and podcasting from his basement and sounding as good as ever. He still has the same support crew. Buzz is no longer with him but makes regular visits via the phone. Steve’s weekly calls with Tom Thayer and Jeff Joniak are great. Steve likes to talk as if he is one level above some the other people at either the Bears or Blackhawks games but all he really is a true and passionate sports fan.

From Disco Demolition to the greatness of the Dahlcast all I can say is thank you for hours of laughs.

I recently was talking with my wife, who has turned into a blogging machine, about Evertnote. At first I was not really impressed. It was not portable so it really did not interest me. A couple of weeks ago I came across a portable version of it that I can load and leave on my USB drive. Now I am using it and really liking it. I really enjoy the ability to keep all the little things I seem to collect on a daily basis in one place. So, as my living my life off of my USB drive continues I keep finding useful tools to install on it. Good thing I got a 16 Gb USB flash drive.

I have been on the multi-year quest to get my MAME machine up and running doing all the things that I have been thinking of. It appears that I have hit the wall in dealing with the ROMs and the Front-End interface. I purchase a set of the DVDs with all the ROMs and the Hard Disk Image files. I have been unable to get all the ROMs to show up as green, not even a decent percentage of them. I understand that I can not expect 100% of the ROMs to be fully functional but better than 10% would be nice.

I am fully aware that this effort is done mostly by volunteers and most of the software is open source. This being the case I can only say this with complete honesty, “I am missing something and it is my own fault that I am having so many problems.” So, the battle continues and I will continue my exhausting search of the web and forums to get my answers to my questions. This is one of those times I wish had a MAME mentor.

I must continue my plan to take over the world or at least my little MAME world.

This is just another example of a talented programmer creating something that can be enjoyed by the masses.