Media Center and Skype 2.0
Ever since we got our new HP Pavilion, I've been improving it and my "home office" setup as well. First off, I bought 2GB of RAM to boost it up to 3GB. Then I got a DVI KVM Switch, so I could plug Windows and Linux into the same KVM setup. Installing OpenSuse wasn't too hard, but configuring CUPS and Samba and adding a 2nd drive took a bit of wrestling. The best part, however, has been yesterday and today.
Julie got everyone in our families new webcams for Christmas. For the past week or so, we've been trying to get them to work. I've had an iSight for almost a year, and I've never been able to get it to work when talking with my parents. This time was no different, but we did get the Mac working with Yahoo Messenger. This led to getting Yahoo working on my Windows box, but the sound sucked and the video wasn't that good. I couldn't get any other IM clients to work either. Then I remembered Skype and thought "they must have video by now". Sure 'nuff, when I checked a few days ago, they had Skype 2.0 with video support. It worked great right away and I had a great "talk" with my parents last night.
Tonight, I got my sister hooked up on Skype and we talked for a bit. She's currently having lots of computer issues and Skype crashes (and quits working altogether) after working fine for about a minute. My dad had a few issues with his machine too - mainly due to Skype tacking out his 1GHz/1GB machine. Bottom line: Skype with Video works great if you have a new machine with plenty o' memory.
Lastly, I received a TV Tuner tonight from Amazon - thanks to a JavaLobby gift certificate (thanks guys!) Note that you need a card with "MCE" in the model name if you want it to work with Media Center. I plugged it in, configured it, and now I'm watching Law & Order while typing this. I setup Conan to record every night and life is good. It's a pretty cool setup - now I just need a new dual-core Intel-based PowerBook to get the best of everything. 