kichigaimentat
02-14-2008, 08:26 AM
One of the things I thought was cool about Systm when the show first started with Rose and company (when Revision3 had like five shows, before the Great Pause), was that a lot of the projects were actually kind of cheap. The entire MythTV (http://revision3.com/systm/mythtv) rig could be pulled off with like $300 worth of hardware (bare minimum rig, nothing fancy). A/V Cables (http://revision3.com/systm/avcabling) were cheap and cool too. Even the Digg button (http://revision3.com/systm/diggthedigg) and AppleTV hacks (http://revision3.com/systm/appletv) were relatively cheap and could be done in a weekend. But now some of the projects are huge, which is cool. The MAME epic (http://revision3.com/systm/mamecase) was interesting, but it seems Systm is starting to move away from cheaper projects of large consequence (something you could throw together in a weekend, but would actually impact you in some way, like building your own Asterisk (http://revision3.com/systm/asterisk) system) and more towards larger, more expensive, less useful, almost more esoteric things (like Qik broadcasting (http://revision3.com/systm/qik) which doesn't support a phone that costs less than $300, and requires a pricy data plan {AT&T will likely charge you $45/mo for a Symbian device, and T-Mo has no 3G yet}, or the EvDO/WiFi Truck, which requires an EvDO plan, rewiring your vehicle, and some larger antennas, and is how useful? Then there's the lemon battery, which is as useful as Brainfuck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck)).
These projects are cool, but the frequency and increasing cost of them is making me more likely to tune out during these larger epics. I'll be honest: i totally skipped over the MAME cabinet, because I thought "I'm never going to build one of these, and by the time I could afford to build one, likely all the rules will have changed, and there'll be a zillion online, in-depth guides, or I could figure it all out." Same thing's coming up with the EvDO/WiFi truck. I don't have Sprint or Verizon (I actually hope to avoid them, not sure if this translates too well to UMTS/HSDPA, though it should, theoretically. Still, I don't have any 3G hardware and I don't feel like buying some dedicated 3G hardware and a separate 3G line on my plan), I can't afford to build a new computer, I don't own a vehicle (working on it, actually, just have to finish repairing a truck, and it's more or less mine), and when am I ever going to need a truck outfitted for this? If I ever need to share cellular data connections, I can just Bluetooth the EDGE/UMTS/1xRTT/EvDO/WiMax over to my laptop, and use OS X's Connection Sharing to pump that out over WiFi. Costs less, and it'd save me time. Plus, unless I live in California, Florida or Hawaii, I'm not likely to be following along, since I don't feel like spending a lot of time in my vehicle, rewiring and testing it, in the middle of Winter (especially if I go home to Minnesota... brrrr!).
I liked the IPCop (http://revision3.com/systm/firewall) episode, since it was (essentially) a $0 project, though I would have liked to hear more about doing some tricking out on the network, like rigging up a WiFi access point (if a geek's going to build a Firewall, I'd be pretty sure he's going to want some WiFi, even if it's just for his DS/PSP/360/PS3/Wii/PDA/TiVo/Desktop), setting up QoS, or outfitting the IPCop with some other features, like using it to turn a USB drive (or any other drive for that matter) into a NAS drive. Or even messing with some of the WRT-54G solutions. Hell, you could do an entire episode on WRT-54G hacking (and if you do, don't forget to mention that there are some not-obviously-compatible routers, like the Buffalo WHR-G54S, I think, which doesn't even look big enough to house a WRT-54 system, and few people seem to be aware of its compatability).
Or how about building a Personal Media Center on the cheap? You could experiment with different solutions, like hacked PS2s and XBoxes, or stock solutions, like MediaMVPs, Linksys media devices, XBox 360 and PS3s, and ways to trick out personal media solutions for things like dorm rooms, shared apartments, or people who just can't afford a big TV and some kick ass speakers, but still want some high quality video experiences.
You guys could even do some tie-ins with Tekzilla. Tekzilla's focus seems to be on off-the-shelf, stock gadgets and toys and stuff. So if a product like Drobo is reviewed, Systm could do a companion piece on a hacked-up alternative, like putting a bunch of disks into a Linux box and configuring RAID on it. Talking about the new version of Photoshop? Give a shout-out to the GIMP.
Now, this isn't all to say that there isn't a place for big, expensive, most-bang-for-your-buck show-offy kinds of projects, like the MAME cabinet or the EvDO/WiFi Truck, but space it out. MAME was done on Episode 28 (after a five episode run), and the EvDO/WiFi Truck picked up seven episodes later. Maybe do these like four big projects a year, then a bunch of smaller projects. You could even talk about stuff done on Hack-a-Day. How about setting up your own multi-purpose web server? You could rig it up with kTorrent (for downloading all your favorite Revision3 shows) with the WebUI, Wordpad, and a MediaWiki, all on the same box. kTorrent's usefulness is obvious, Wordpad would be so you can blog about whatever you want (not be limited by a TOS, and do stuff other blogs might not let you do for various reasons, like they'd run out of storage), and MediaWiki as a note-taking tool (like for college students. I set up a MediaWiki on my iBook once, and used it to take notes for class and found its simple markup and support for LaTeX Math Formula rendering to be perfect for notetaking). You could even do an entire episode on note taking hacks. Tricks for handwriting notes, recording notes, snapping pictures of whiteboards, and software/tools for electronic note taking (using laptops, computer lab computers, PDAs, stuff like that). You could do something like two episodes on that stuff, if you wanted to go into any detail.
You get what I'm going for here, though. Cheap, useful, achievable stuff.
These projects are cool, but the frequency and increasing cost of them is making me more likely to tune out during these larger epics. I'll be honest: i totally skipped over the MAME cabinet, because I thought "I'm never going to build one of these, and by the time I could afford to build one, likely all the rules will have changed, and there'll be a zillion online, in-depth guides, or I could figure it all out." Same thing's coming up with the EvDO/WiFi truck. I don't have Sprint or Verizon (I actually hope to avoid them, not sure if this translates too well to UMTS/HSDPA, though it should, theoretically. Still, I don't have any 3G hardware and I don't feel like buying some dedicated 3G hardware and a separate 3G line on my plan), I can't afford to build a new computer, I don't own a vehicle (working on it, actually, just have to finish repairing a truck, and it's more or less mine), and when am I ever going to need a truck outfitted for this? If I ever need to share cellular data connections, I can just Bluetooth the EDGE/UMTS/1xRTT/EvDO/WiMax over to my laptop, and use OS X's Connection Sharing to pump that out over WiFi. Costs less, and it'd save me time. Plus, unless I live in California, Florida or Hawaii, I'm not likely to be following along, since I don't feel like spending a lot of time in my vehicle, rewiring and testing it, in the middle of Winter (especially if I go home to Minnesota... brrrr!).
I liked the IPCop (http://revision3.com/systm/firewall) episode, since it was (essentially) a $0 project, though I would have liked to hear more about doing some tricking out on the network, like rigging up a WiFi access point (if a geek's going to build a Firewall, I'd be pretty sure he's going to want some WiFi, even if it's just for his DS/PSP/360/PS3/Wii/PDA/TiVo/Desktop), setting up QoS, or outfitting the IPCop with some other features, like using it to turn a USB drive (or any other drive for that matter) into a NAS drive. Or even messing with some of the WRT-54G solutions. Hell, you could do an entire episode on WRT-54G hacking (and if you do, don't forget to mention that there are some not-obviously-compatible routers, like the Buffalo WHR-G54S, I think, which doesn't even look big enough to house a WRT-54 system, and few people seem to be aware of its compatability).
Or how about building a Personal Media Center on the cheap? You could experiment with different solutions, like hacked PS2s and XBoxes, or stock solutions, like MediaMVPs, Linksys media devices, XBox 360 and PS3s, and ways to trick out personal media solutions for things like dorm rooms, shared apartments, or people who just can't afford a big TV and some kick ass speakers, but still want some high quality video experiences.
You guys could even do some tie-ins with Tekzilla. Tekzilla's focus seems to be on off-the-shelf, stock gadgets and toys and stuff. So if a product like Drobo is reviewed, Systm could do a companion piece on a hacked-up alternative, like putting a bunch of disks into a Linux box and configuring RAID on it. Talking about the new version of Photoshop? Give a shout-out to the GIMP.
Now, this isn't all to say that there isn't a place for big, expensive, most-bang-for-your-buck show-offy kinds of projects, like the MAME cabinet or the EvDO/WiFi Truck, but space it out. MAME was done on Episode 28 (after a five episode run), and the EvDO/WiFi Truck picked up seven episodes later. Maybe do these like four big projects a year, then a bunch of smaller projects. You could even talk about stuff done on Hack-a-Day. How about setting up your own multi-purpose web server? You could rig it up with kTorrent (for downloading all your favorite Revision3 shows) with the WebUI, Wordpad, and a MediaWiki, all on the same box. kTorrent's usefulness is obvious, Wordpad would be so you can blog about whatever you want (not be limited by a TOS, and do stuff other blogs might not let you do for various reasons, like they'd run out of storage), and MediaWiki as a note-taking tool (like for college students. I set up a MediaWiki on my iBook once, and used it to take notes for class and found its simple markup and support for LaTeX Math Formula rendering to be perfect for notetaking). You could even do an entire episode on note taking hacks. Tricks for handwriting notes, recording notes, snapping pictures of whiteboards, and software/tools for electronic note taking (using laptops, computer lab computers, PDAs, stuff like that). You could do something like two episodes on that stuff, if you wanted to go into any detail.
You get what I'm going for here, though. Cheap, useful, achievable stuff.