Changing Hosting Service Again
September 18, 2007
Mr Papa’s World and all of my other domains will be changing hosting services once again. I have been with current host for a year now and it has been pretty good. I having been paying a bit of a premium for the service and I didn’t mind it give my experiences with previous hosts. However, in the last few months my sites have struggled with it throwing internal server errors. My host and I have not been able to figure out the reason though it seems to be related to WordPress and his setup. This is not a common problem with WordPress.
Anyways, my hosting contract is up next month and it’s either now or much later if I am going to change hosts. I have decided it’s now. I am moving to a new host that I know several folks have had good luck with. I will actually be gaining some bandwidth and disk storage space too. The cost will actually be going down, so I am a bit worried about getting what you pay for, but the time is right.
I have started prepping for the move today. The actual move will most likely occur tonight or tomorrow. When it does happen, it generally takes 24 – 48 hours for all the DNS to propagate and point you to the right server. Until that time, if you come to Mr Papa’s World on the old server, you will see a site down for maintenance display. If you correctly see the Mr Papa’s World site, then your DNS has propagated and you will be at the new site. I will also post a welcome to the new site message. Hopefully, you won’t even notice the move.
New Theater System
July 31, 2007
As mentioned in a previous post, I have replaced most of the components in my home theater system. I had set up the current system about 4 years ago when we moved into our current house in Arizona. HDTV was still relatively new and some wanted features weren’t available then. Some of these features were true HDMI, 1080p native and hi-definition DVDs.
There really wasn’t anything wrong with the current system and I hope I can recoup a few dollars in the sale of it. I have already had one guy come by and look at the HDTV. I should hear back from him in a day or two. The HDTV was a CRT projection set. It is still has most likely the best black color representation and essentially infinite contrast ratio. However, the unit is simply big. It is 26 inches deep and has totally useless speakers covering the bottom third of the set. I decided to go more slim on the TV.
I don’t like plasma or LCD displays as their blacks and whites are too washed out. To me, fast motion on them also causes artifacts. Thus, I decided to go with a DLP projection HDTV. Some folks have reported seeing color wheels on the sets if they turn their heads very fast while viewing. First, not sure why you would do that and second, I don’t have that issue. The new set is only 14 inches deep and and is 1080p with HDMI. It is a 61″ Samsung model. I am still playing around with doing a color calibration on the set, but am thus far very satisfied.
I replaced my Denon A/V Receiver with a Yamaha A/V Receiver that is HDMI compliant and can do input switching and upconversion. Both receivers were 7.1 surround sound receivers. Yamaha is well known for the DSP sound field programs, but I am not sure how much I will use them as I prefer to use the encoded sound directly off the DVDs. I much prefer DTS to Dolby though.
I also added a Samsung Blu-Ray player to my setup. The Blu-Ray replaces my Pioneer Elite DVD player. I am still not sure that I don’t technically prefer the HD-DVD format to Blu-Ray, but clearly the most source data is available in Blu-Ray, so I went that direction. The 1080p resolution coming off of the discs is absolutely stunning. There is a noticeable although not great difference between the 1080i and 1080p formats. Hopefully, it won’t be years before more source material (ie Satellite) will be available in 1080p. It is really hard for me to watch standard definition TV after having HDTV for years. It is likely that the 1080 Blu-Ray will due the same to 480p and upconverted DVDs.
The last, new component was the DirecTV HD DVR. We have long used Tivo, but it was always standard def. Suzanne and the kids have been using the Tivo up until now, but I have pretty much ignored it since I find it hard to watch standard def TV. With this new hi def recorder, I can again watch some shows of interest that I may have missed. The record quality is very good. It also has two tuners which allows us to record two programs or watch one while recording another. Technically, that’s not a new feature, but it’s new for us and has already come in handy.
The components in my system that I did not replace were my power conditioning unit, the battery backup (can’t lose my xbox 360 games or in progress DVR stuff), my Xbox 360, Suzanne’s karaoke system and my 7.1 speaker system.
This new theater system is really awesome. Folks need to stop on by and check out the future with hi-definition movies!
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