Skype Me

We are trying to use Skype. Unfortunately there does seem to be some echo present by the party calling us. I did have a long distance call to Vienna where they said they did not hear an echo. Maybe there is hope.

I had previously bought a Sony Ericcson HBH-30 headset. The main reason for selecting it was because it did not look so geeky. It's very sleek, but that is because the battery is in the earpiece. However, it doesn't fit so well, so I don't know if I would really ever use it for a headset for my mobile phone.

Anyway, in the meantime, the uConnect device has also arrived. It seems to work very well, so I can hook up any phone to my PC. Most important, I can even hook up a cordless phone. The quality seems to be very good (except for the annoying echo part which is not related to the uConnect device).

Anyway, I have tried adjusting some Windows settings to try to minimize the echo. I have not used it all that much, so it is difficult to say how well it is working. I was wondering that since Skype is based on Europe, I wonder if the connections in other parts of the world including US are not as good.

More ReplayTV

OK, I have not bought any more ReplayTV machines (yet). I guess 6 is enough for one household, although I plan to give one to my mom.

However, we did experience a second hard drive failure from one of the Western Digital drives. This makes two hardware failures for WD. I think I am going to have to go to Seagate with their 5-year warranties.

Anyway, so I transferred one of the hard drives to the ReplayTV unit in the Media Room. It was the one which had the HD failure. In addition, the tuner had stopped working when we had an electrical storm.

I then put in a 400 GB hard drive in the other unit, which previously had the HD which was moved to replace the failed HD.

When formatting the configuration, I made sure to leave 1 GB available for photos, so that I can use the Web Remote function. This allows me to actually access the machine as if I were pressing the remote buttons across the Internet. The image of the screens (only software screen images, not TV images) are transferred back so I can see what screen I am on.

And for some good news, the tuner which was previously not working started to work again. Looks like it just needed some rest.

By the way, I found a good article (and video) on how to show videos from your PC on your TV by using ReplayTV:

http://www.g4tv.com/screensavers/features/426/Play_Your_PCs_Video_Files_on_ReplayTV.html

Cleaning up my act!

I have been cleaning up the hard drive on my backup machine. I freed approximately 50-60 GB just by eliminating duplicate backups. I'll need to clean it some more, although, I'll do it through software instead of trying to manually identify duplicate files.

I have been setting up the MediaPC to be able to be the server for TV Japan media.

NetVista:

• Movabletype web server
• Skype primary client for incoming calls (maybe this should be my work PC)
  

MediaPC:

• FTP
• Backup/archive
• Media/Orb server
• TV Japan media server
  
• DVArchive web server

In addition, I did receive Sling Box and have set it up currently for TV Japan. It seems like it is possible to set up multiple Sling Boxes with a home network. Anyway, I still need to verify connection works from outside the home network.

Google search

Trying to get Kyokorin's Japanese Tutor website to be able to appear in Google based on the search: japanese tutor flower mound

Japanese Tutor in Flower Mound
Japanese Tutor in Flower Mound

These currently do not appear in Google. This confuses me a bit as to how to get blogger entries (which is part of Google) to appear in a Google search. Some blogger entries do get found, but I would imagine a majority do not.

By the way, just wondering if the blogs using Google ads are ones which are able to be found by Google. Hmmm... OK, so much for that theory. My mom's blog is found by Google and it only has two entries and has not been updated in a while. Hmmmm... Actually, that doesn't disprove my theory completely. As a postscript, I did find that Yokogolfer was listed in Bloglisting.com. I wonder if that is why it was found in Google.

Google does find Craig's List, so we posted an ad there.

Yahoo actually does find Kyokorin's web page, although the result was sometimes different when logged onto a Yahoo account or not.

Yahoo also finds the Yahoo Directory entry as well, although when logged onto a Yahoo account, it would only show the updated pages from the directory.

MSN Search actually finds the http://www.japanese-tutor.com page although only if using "japanese tutor" flower mound as the search criteria.

As an update...

Google results in:

1. Craig's list

When searching on learn japanese flower mound, Craig's list comes in at #5.

Yahoo now finds blogspot even when logged onto a Yahoo account, and the order is:

1. Blogspot
2. Yahoo directory
3. Craig's list

When searching on learn japanese flower mound, the order is:

1. Yahoo directory
2. Blogspot

In MSN Search does not seem to find any of the pages. However, using japanese tutor "flower mound" results in the Comcast home page being #1.

And searching on "japanese tutor" flower mound results in:

1. Blogspot
2. Comcast home page
3. Yahoo directory
4. Craig's list

Updated from November 3:

For japanese tutor flower mound,Google finds:

1. Craig's list
2. del.icio.us (but link does not take you to proper listing)
3. KBCafe tag search
   

By the way, japanese-tutor seems to be a site recognized by Google (per site:japanese-tutor.com) but nothing seems to be indexed.

Yahoo finds:

1. Blogspot
2. Craig's list
3. Yahoo directory
4. Japanese-tutor.com

MSN finds nothing.

For learn japanese flower mound, Google finds:

• Craig's list (as #5)

Yahoo finds:

1. Blogspot
2. Japanese-tutor.com (as #4)

MSN finds nothing. However searching for "japanese tutor" flower mound results in:

1. Blogspot
2. Comcast
3. Japanese-tutor.com
   
4. Geocities directory
5. Craig's list (as #7)

Updated from November 4:

Yeehaw! (I am from Texas.) Google now finds Japanese-tutor.com... on second page, but it is a start. In addition, searching for learn japanese flower mound does not result in a hit, so I have changed the title from "Japanese tutor in..." to "Learn Japanese in..."