Dave Garrett

My discs finally showed up today. Never got a reply to any of my attempts to contact them, including the Paypal dispute, but they did throw an extra disc into the order as a bonus. All's well that ends well.

Nope. Anyone can do it. I think the iPhones all come with a SIM eject tool now, but a paperclip can certainly be used as well: Removing SIM card prior to iPhone repair

Our 8-year-old GSD, Gretchen, taken this afternoon. She is small for the breed, about 60 pounds, and people frequently assume she is still a puppy.

Crap - I just opened a Paypal dispute right before logging in here and seeing this. I'd also been thinking that I was getting close to the 45-day deadline to do so, and when I finally looked at a calendar and counted the days, I didn't hesitate any longer. Not good.

Wow, I hadn't checked out the link yet when I posted that, and didn't realize that they were offering the complete run on their site. And at no charge, to boot. Amazing.

The company that partnered with the New Yorker to produce that set, Bondi Digital, also has produced a set containing a complete run of Rolling Stone and all of the 50s issues of Playboy. After an initial splash with those sets amid much talk of further projects, there wasn't much in the way of news for several years, leading me to believe that Bondi had fallen on hard times (especially after seeing all of the earlier sets remaindered and widely available for cheap). However, I just stumbled across this, and even though the announcement is a year old, I'm hopeful that the later sets will see the light of day, as I've really wanted the 60s Playboy issues ever since I first heard about the 50s set. SI would be fantastic as well, and without trying very hard I'm sure I could come up with dozens of other periodicals that I'd love to see get the digital treatment. The only drawback is that it's unfortunate that Bondi chose a proprietary file format, but that's not too surprising. I have to wonder how usable their sets will be with the computers and OSes in use ten years from now. I suppose there will always be emulators that can address issues of backwards compatibility.

Do the scratches affect play? If not, I'd leave them alone. If so, I'd avoid the cheap kits, which probably won't do anything except fill up the playing surface with cloudy swirls. What you need is someone that has one of the professional-grade resurfacing machines. I've never used them, but I've heard good things about Azuradisc's mail-in service. Supposedly they've got a pretty good success rate at making discs look almost like-new.

Just curious if you got a response. Still no sign of my order placed February 6, and as yet no response to the email I sent last Thursday inquiring about its status.

I've bought several things from blowitoutahere and was likewise favorably impressed with them. Will definitely patronize them again. My only experiences with MovieMars have been on eBay, but based on that, I'd have to conclude that they list items which they do not have in stock and are unable to obtain from their distributor. I've run across far too many listings from them for out-of-print items that there's no way they could possibly have, and the one time I bit on one of those listings when they were literally the only vendor anywhere that had the item listed at any price, sure enough, they couldn't fulfill it. To be fair, they did issue a refund pretty quickly when I requested one after several weeks had elapsed with no sign of the item.

If you're considering DLT, do some research on LTO before making a decision. I'm no tape-format expert, but from what I've read LTO is the format of choice for many in the archival community, incorporating both backwards compatibility in addition to a well-defined path forward for format upgrades. The downside is that I believe LTO requires a significantly larger up-front hardware investment than DLT does, but again, I haven't actually priced drives. DLT, SDLT, LTO FAQ (lots more where this came from via a Google search for "DLT LTO")

This bears repeating. For data that you absolutely can't afford to lose, you need redundant backups with at least one set stored offsite. Some folks keep three sets of backups with two stored offsite in different locations. Hard drives can fail from lack of use as well as constant use (and there's plenty of debate as to which is worse for a drive), so make sure you spin up the offsite backups on a scheduled basis once in a while. If you're using USB external drives, you could rotate the offsite backup drives in and the onsite backup drives out every so often, assuming that the onsite backup drives would see semi-regular activity. Any archivist will tell you that a migration path for archived data is essential, especially in an era of rapid technological advancements where what was a standard storage format 5-10 years ago is most likely now obsolete. So plan on replacing the drives (or whatever storage media you decide on) and migrating the data every so often even if they still appear to be functioning perfectly. Don't think of your backups as something to just put on a shelf and forget about until you need them, but rather something that needs to be actively managed.

Sounds like she was more than a little chesty.

Interesting, but it's clear (and they state as much) that this analysis only holds true for items that are plentiful and readily available. For scarce or collectible items, it's extremely doubtful that the same logic applies. I'd bet the results would have been quite different if the DVDs used in the study had been OOP titles that are highly in-demand by collectors and tend to be expensive when they appear on the secondary market.

Same here, except I ordered on the 6th.

Iirc there are music-rights issues with EYES ON THE PRIZE that have hindered its being sold on DVD. That's unfortunate. I only saw parts of it when first screened here. I'd find it really useful now as a teach this topic to 16-17 year olds. It's not so much music rights issues, as it is the archival footage that comprises so much of EYES ON THE PRIZE that's prevented it from a DVD release. When the series was originally produced, the rights for the archival footage were only cleared for a limited amount of time, so the producers have had to renegotiate clearances for a DVD release - and the asking price for much of the footage has increased significantly in the interim. PBS did finally release the series on DVD several years ago, but only for educational use, and its steep price ($400+) reflected that restriction. However, they are apparently releasing a consumer version that is much more reasonably priced next month, although it's unclear if any footage had to be replaced as a result of rights issues: PBS DVD - EYES ON THE PRIZE I have both EYES and its sequel EYES II on laserdisc. Both are essential, and it's a crime that they've been so hard to see in the years since they were originally broadcast.

Shout! Factory issued the first season of Parker Lewis on DVD last year, and the second season just came out a couple of weeks ago: Season One Season Two

There's been quite a bit of discussion about this at the Hoffman board. Consensus seemed to be that there was a significant chance of winding up with a bootleg if you purchased it from a third-party seller (I may be oversimplifying, as I'll admit to barely skimming some of the Beatles threads before my eyes start to glaze over). Sounds like the time for screwing around with the seller directly has passed, if you've sent him that many emails. Go directly to Amazon and let them handle it.

http://www.revenantrecords.com/ayler/disc6.html I think I've mentioned this here before, but I sent them an email via that link seeking a replacement disc 6 well over a year ago and never got a response. Others have reported the same results. So I'd have to say that the chances of getting a replacement at this point are somewhere between slim and none - although I'd love to be proven wrong.

I recently upgraded my Denon AVR-3200 to a Denon AVR-5700, which was their flagship AV receiver about ten years ago. This thing is built like a tank - the latter-day units can't compare when it comes to build quality. It originally sold for $2800, but I only paid $300 for it, and it's in mint condition. The lack of HDMI switching makes it a non-starter for some, but as I don't yet have an HDMI-enabled TV and I'm using it far more for music than video, I'm quite happy with it. Also just got a Pioneer Elite DV-47Ai DVD player to use primarily as a CD/SACD/DVD-A deck, which should be a nice step up from the B-stock Sony 5-disc SACD changer I've been using. When new, it was about $1200 - I paid a little over $100. I'm quite content to upgrade my system with "obsolete" equipment that sounds great but doesn't cost a fortune.

My favorite, the Oppo DV-980H, has unfortunately been discontinued, and Oppo is only manufacturing Blu-Ray players now. The DV-980H is even difficult to find used, probably because everyone I know that's ever bought one has no intention of ever giving it up. I've never personally used them, but other people I know have recommended this vendor for region-free/multistandard players. And as I mentioned earlier, VideoHelp.com is worth checking out (search by model number or manufacturer for info on specific players).

hey jlhoots. what brand and model dvd player do you have? i converted my cheap memorex dvd player into a "universal region" disc player w/ the press of a few buttons on my remote. literally took me 30 seconds. i found the 'code' online. It's not the region code that's the problem - as the distributor stated, it's a region-free (region 0) disc. jlhoots' DVD player needs to be able to play PAL (European video standard) discs, and I'd bet that it does not. Most of the region-selectable players can handle both PAL and NTSC discs, and perform the necessary standards conversion to enable you to view PAL discs on NTSC hardware, and vice versa. jlhoots, you could probably pick up a cheap PAL-capable, region-free player for around what you paid for the DVD. Check out VideoHelp.com for some info on region-free players.

I don't have much use for Facebook (I have an account there, but have really never used it for anything) or MySpace, but Twitter is an entirely different thing from the others, and we've only just begun to glimpse some of the ways its effects are being felt. Yes, there's a bunch of inane crap on there, but the same thing can be said of many other online communities, and anyone who's spent any amount of time online has surely developed the ability to filter wheat from chaff by now. Anyone who has dismissed it as yet another faddish internet phenomenon should read these articles: How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live Why Twitter Will Endure

My seat of the pants feeling was that 3.5.7 was a little more unstable than earlier versions, but since 3.6 is now in production release, I updated to that version last Friday, and it seems to be an improvement.

Our German Shepherd doesn't wrap herself up in a blanket, but she does sleep in the bed with us. It's not as crowded as it might sound, but I still keep thinking I'd like to upgrade from a queen- to a king-size mattress (we bought the current mattress before we got the dog).

Y'all are aware that Ron Hearn posts reasonably comprehensive lists of jazz birthdays every day on the Usenet newsgroup rec.music.bluenote, right? Sadly, it's practically the only traffic that once-thriving newsgroup gets these days, but that's par for the course with most of Usenet now anyway. A couple of other folks used to help Ron with posting and maintaining the lists, but have since "retired" from that task, and there was some discussion a while back about discontinuing the lists entirely, but Ron has so far opted to keep posting them. Google groups search for r.m.b b-day lists