mello-family.com

Comcast Remote 30 Second Skip

There are two features I missed when I switched from my dish network DVR to Tivo. Surprisingly, Tivo didn’t have a dual tuner for years after it was available from satellite providers.  The second feature I missed was the 30-second skip feature which allows you to immediately  jump +30 seconds (the length of most commercials), forcing you to use a clunky VCR-like fast-forward mechanism.

I recently switched to Comcast (dual tuner! digital! HD ready!) and found out that you can enable the 30 second skip for their system too. 

1) Press the “Cable” button at the top of the remote to put it into Cable Box control mode.

2) Press and hold the “Setup” button until the “Cable” button blinks twice.

3) Type in the code 994. The “Cable” button will blink twice

4) Press (do not hold) the “Setup” button

5) Type in the code 00173 (for 30 second Skip)

6) Press whatever button you want to map the skip

Special thanks to the posting on Damon Cortesi’s blog for this tip.

As it turns out, TiVo can do a 30 second skip as well -

Lily and Family on YouTube

In addition to the music videos found here, you can find classic video clips of Lily and family like “Trampoline Drama Queen” on Leslie’s YouTube page.

Leslie Visit Summer 2006

The latest in the Mello / Wood family movie series is out. Somehow Lily always ends up being the star of the show...

Road Warrior

After a year of crazy travel, my schedule is returning to a more normal pace.  While it’s great to have elite travel status with airlines, hotels and car rental agencies, I hope my road-warrior title is permanently retired!

Sync Your Phone with Zyb

Zyb is a new service that allows you to sync your mobile phone contacts and calendar without wires for FREE!  This is great news, and I encourage you to check their phone compatibility list before purchasing your next handset.

You can use ZYB with almost any mobile from Nokia, SonyEricsson, Siemens and Motorola, as well as some of the newer models from Samsung, LG and others.  Sync is done over-the-air via a connection over the mobile phone network.

And to think those creeps at Verizon want to charge you $2 per month for the same service.  For shame Verizon, for shame!

 

Our Favorite YouTube Guitarist Revealed

This is another “you saw it here” post.  The NY Times has posted an article on what has become one of the five most viewed videos on YouTube with over nine million hits so far.  The Times reveals our guitarist as Jeong-Hyun Lim, a 23-year-old  from Korea.

The Thinking Person's YouTube

If you read this blog, then you know that I'm a big YouTube fan.  Google is now competing with a site that has much better performance.

My favorite video site is soon to be VideoJug once they get more content up.  I realize that the name implies an entirely different type of site, but these folks are putting together a library of thousands of how-to videos.  Some are produced in-house and others will be uploaded by members.

All content is approved before it is posted, so VideoJug should turn into a very high-quality site.

 

31 Ways to Lace Shoes

Ian's Shoelace Site illustrates 31 different ways to lace your shoes.  The author points out that while mathematically there are there are over two trillion possibilities, these 31 are his favorite.

Second Wind Tracks

I have finally gotten around to ripping and posting some tracks I've recorded over the years.  This music was recorded in 1994 by a bluegrasss band from New Hampshire named "Second Wind".  (Not to be confused with the group from PA.)

We recorded it in my friend Larry's studio (East Coast Digital - which I helped design) in Tyngsboro, MA with a Neumann U87 and a few Beyerdynamic microphones with a Mackie 8-bus console, 16-Bit ADAT's and Genelec 1031a monitors.

We mixed it down and did some editing and mastering on ProTools.

If you would like to download any of the mp3 files, click on the button to the right of the track name.

Add Streaming Video to TypePad Blog with Stickam

Stickam™ allows you to easily place streaming video on your blog and/or web site.  The video is uploaded via the Flash browser plug-in and displays as a flash movie - NICE! 

However, if you copy and paste the Stickam code as the site suggests, you’ll get a very busy full-sized 160 x 400 interface on your blog that takes up a lot of real estate.  (See the image to the left.)

If you are not planning on using the chat features, and simply want a streaming web-cam, then you can mask the display using HTML and have a nice streaming video window on your web site or blog.  Here’s how to do it: