Speeders, Crime and Punishment, -and- Friends

In the News Today:

Speeders - LAPD commission to shut down red light cameras

Crime and Punishment - SWAT team breaks down man's door over wife's defaulted student loan

Friends - woman has 152 Facebook friends tattooed onto arm

Technology in the News Today:

Facing Data Caps, Consumers Keep Turning to Wi-Fi

Four out of Five Users Can't Live without "Angry Birds"

Steve Jobs Wants to Build a Spaceship-Like Campus in Cupertino

On this Day in History: June 8, 1986 - Former UN Secretary General and Nazi war criminal Kurt Waldheim is elected president of Austria. One year later, the U.S. Justice Department places him on a watch list of undesirable aliens, making Waldheim the first foreign head of state legally forbidden from visiting America.

Born on this Day in History: June 8, 1867 - Frank Lloyd Wright (1867 - 1959) Born in Richland Center, WI, architect Frank Lloyd Wright studied with Louis Sullivan and founded his own Chicago practice in 1893. Influential through his love of natural textures, his mastery of organic architecture led to international fame. In 1949, Wright received the American Institute of Architects' Gold Medal.

Scripture of the Day:



Video of the Day: -

In compliance with proposed legislation banning embedding YouTube videos,I have discontinued this feature on this blog.

Imagine my surprise when I encountered this scene at Walmart while journeying to my office this morning! Click to enlarge.

The Roku XD/S - As a Media Player: - I replaced the Roku XD with a Roku XD/S at home yesterday. The XD/S features a USB port. I quickly (and very happily) determined the Roku XD/S will accept any USB device that uses FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, or HFS+ drive formatting. I tested it with my Droid X smartphone, my Motorola Xoom tablet device, an old hard drive I found on a dusty shelf (using an external drive interface), and an HP 16GB USB thumb drive. The Roku XD/S worked flawlessly with all of them.

Today, I received another Roku XD/S to replace the Roku XD here at my office. I also received two 2TB Seagate external USB drives—one for here and one for home. Laura and I will begin filling these monster drives.

I used an HP 16GB USB thumb drive with the Roku XD/S today to ensure the Roku XD/S would work well with directories and sub-directories. It certainly does!

To access the USB device, one needs only to connect the device and go to the USB Channel, using the Roku XD/S remote control. The Roku XD/S then prompts one for the type of media one wishes the unit to play. The choices are Movies, Music, and Photos. If one selects Movies, for example, the Roku ferrets the USB device and displays the names of all the movie/video files it locates. I created directories and sub-directories on the USB thumb drive, and Roku quickly found the files specific to the choice (of the three available) and displays them. The Roku displays the file directory names, sub-directory names, and file names. Only supported file types are displayed. Roku hides all unsupported file types. The following file types are supported = Video: - MKV, MP4, MOV, WMV, WMV9; Music: AAC, MP3; Photo: JPG, PNG

The Roku XD/S— in addition to performing superbly as a media player— performs all the tasks of the Roku XD, as well: It provides access to Netflix, Hulu Plus, Facebook, Flikr, YouTube, and hundreds of other media resources. With ease, one can add Nowhere TV, which gives one access to several dozen other media sources, including CBS, ABC, FOX, NASA, etc.

GET ONE! (or two or three or...)

This is an incredible device that I highly recommend to everyone!