VCR SAFE Mode

VCR SAFE MODE..

My daughter was playing with the remote. After a while when I tried to watch a movie, the VCR said SAFE on the display and nothing was happening. Based on my research this is what I found. SAFE mode in VCR's is kind of a child lock function. To get out of the mode different VCR companies have different methods.

1. Press the CH.Lock" or "Child Lock" button on your remote if you have one.
2. Hold TV/VCR, on remote for 30 seconds.
3. If it is a universal remote press the VCR button and hold the power button for 10-15 secs.
4. If all fails , swap the batteries to fresh ones and try the steps again.
5. If you have lost the remote, buy a universal remote and program it to your VCR.

ChannelLive.tv review

ChannelLive.tv review

Being in the US I miss my tamil entertainment channels a lot. Ofcourse there is SUNTV and VIJAY TV through dish and directv but what if we cannot have dish at our place. My apartment doesn't allow dish and I was looking for other options.

This is when I came across this Channellive.tv ad in Thendral magazine. The ad was impressive when it said you dont need a PC to watch TV and they provide a set top box to view most of the tamil channels. I browsed their website http://www.channellive.tv/. I was a little bit hesitant to order this and called the 888 number on the website to get more info about the company. My question was does this box work and the quality of the channels and the support person ( his name was Prem I guess) said they have around 3000 customers in the US. The tv channels content is uploaded from the middle east to some server in washington etc..(exactly not sure on the specifics). So I decided to give this box a try and ordered the tamil plus plus package. You can get all the packages info at their website. The box was around $100 and the 6 months package was around $100 and the shipping of the box cost was $20. Make sure you read the agreement and the cancellation terms to get a better idea if you plan to cancel this service.

Viewing Options

You can pay a monthly fee and watch it online on the website or get a set top box and connect it to your TV. The set top box needs a ethernet connection.
I ordered the box on Feb 2 and recd on Feb 14. I was told that the set top boxes are on back order and hence the delay of shipping the box out.

Set top box package contents

Set top box, Ethernet Cable, Power Cable, Composite Audio Video Cable - Yellow, Red, White, Remote and Batteries

Installation

The box is very tiny like a small book. Doesn't consume lot of space. It has 2 ethernet ports, AC power plugin and 2 USB ports. The USB ports are for connecting to a wireless network with the help of a wireless USB adapter. At this point I am not sure whether you can use a wireless USB adapter as I couldnt find anywhere in the website.

Setup was very simple..took 5 mins to hook up to my TV. Connected the power and hooked the box to a switch port on the router and connected the audio video cable to the TV. Powered on the set top box on and greeted to a screen where I had to email the MAC address of the box, phone number and the serial number of the settop box to support at channellive.tv. The folks at channelLive have to activate the box for us inorder to start watching the TV channels. It was a saturday when I emailed them the details for activation and I thought I had to wait until Mon to watch the channels but I got my box activated on Sunday.


Viewing Experience

Once activated, You see a screen which says Watch C-Live Tv. Once you go in you can see the list of channels. Once you select a channel it takes 10-15 secs to launch the channel. The remote up and down channel buttons doesnt work..so when you hit the up or the down button it takes us to the home screen where you can choose the channels. I have had it for about 2 weeks and looks pretty good. In my experience Kalaignar TV is of superior quality. Rest others are ok. I have had a few times where the channel just stops..you have to reload it to get it going again. Overall it is ok with a very few hicupps of buffering here and there but definitely not bad.

Channels and their timing

Kalaignar, Jaya, Makkal and Mega TV - all are shown live at CST timing...similar to SUN TV.
March 3, 8 PM IST News for Kalaignar TV will be shown in the US on the same day i.e March 3, 8 PM CST.

Technical Support

I called their tech support line once to see whey buffering occurs. They hinted due to a VOIP line at my home there might be some issues but really this shouldn't be happening was their comment. I have not seen any big issues after my call with them..Tech support number is 630-246-4788.

Try this out if you are interested.

Update: From Sep 2, 2009 - Makkal TV has been removed. Instead Podighai TV has been added. Actually it is nice to watch Podighai TV after along time.

Batch file to map network drives

Batch file to map network drives

Net use is the command use to map network drives, printers etc.

Below are some common examples of net use command. Stick the command in a .bat file and use it at startup etc.

simple mapping to share in a server
net use i: \\servername\sharename

map a drive to a share with a username and password
net use p: \\servername or ip\sharename password /USER:domain\username

to disconnect a drive
net use i: \\servername\sharename /delete

If the servername or a shared drive has a space within itself use the quotation marks
net use i: "\\server 1"\sharename