I don't know about universal remote brand but I've heard RTI have a dramatically inferior database and require you to "learn" most functions on remotes. For example, the harmony remote I use in the living room controls an xbox 360, fios cable box with dvr, an onkyo receiver, a samsung blu-ray player, a wd live, and a viewsonic projector. All of this purchased as near gear in the last year with the exception of the xbox. I had to "learn" one button (the DVR button to access the DVR portion of the cable box). Everything else worked with the profiles provided. After searching for each device, running a wizard for each activity (watch tv, watch a movie, play music, play a game) where I set the viewing device and which device to switch inputs on, and a quick once over of a picture of the remote to make sure all the critical buttons were assigned correctly I was good to go.

That is actually pretty simple. My only issue is that it's too simple. For instance, the first time I programmed the remote with this projector it didn't shut the projector off correctly because the projector needs power pressed twice. The old interface let me specify the power off sequence with presses and delays. The "simplified" new interface does not. When I programmed the remote again a month or two ago due to a new blu-ray player suddenly the remote handled the projector correctly.

Also the RTI are missing critical buttons like the back button. Exit and back are two different buttons.

Otherwise it looks like a solid contender.

The only remotes I'm finding searching for "big button remote" are the normal crappy "universal" remotes that support no custom buttons and couldn't even change inputs on a TV, let alone control the DVR functions of a cable box or be smart enough for volume up to be the volume control on your SRS receiver when watching a blu-ray or playing a video game without making you switch between button sets with a device button.

Seriously, this will only help us maintain our current level of behind the rest of the world. 100mbps is a solid minimum link speed.

"So, you want to install a "Wave harnessing device" on a boat who's primary mission is to stay moored in the same place without moving despite wind and waves? You don't see a problem with that?"

I certainly don't. If the boat has generators absorbing the wave motion energy that energy isn't there to move the boat.

With the way logitech has handled this sort of thing in their remote controls before the only communication is when you actually program the device and that is just to let you tie into their database of pre-built profiles.

That's silly. Obviously the one ring to rule them all is the device that controls all of these devices.

That internet connection requirement gets you the largest database of remote control presets out there and more importantly everything added in the future. It also expands the database as YOU program custom buttons and functions.

If you can find another remote that you can buy today and know you'll be able to program it for your next set of not yet on the market devices, and the set after that, etc does IR and RF, and can mix and match device buttons and functions without switching button profiles, and still does let you program custom functions like a 3D button, subtitle button, VIA button, DVR button, TV Input, Setup, Menu, etc, etc, etc. And actually manages to provide a better interface at a reasonable price point. I'd love to know.

But thus far, the logitech harmony series is the only thing I've found that actually gets that job done at all and therefore is the best by default.

Would you want to watch a video of geek trying to play a harp he designed? Would you want to see the result of a liberal arts major trying to design a harp?

Unless they are the same guy. Both answers are no.

If you have a 12mbit connection vs a 20mbit connection how is it you think the traffic magically figures that out so it can send you traffic at the correct rate for your link?<br><br>I won't go into windowing and the technical details but suffice it to say that you can control the OTHER sender by limiting the speed of your responses and dropping packets until that transmission is the rate you want. You can combine that with buffering on the first device on your network so that when there are two packets to send, it sends the packets out in the order you'd specified. So that if you have 4 packets of ftp data and 4 packets of voip data in the buffer your device forwards say 2 voip, 1 data, 2 voip, etc So everything keeps moving but the voip moves a little faster. This might make the ftp connection transfer at a lower rate if there is enough voip data to cause it to miss acknowledgments but in most cases just results in the voip data being lower latency.<br><br>There is nothing your ISP can do to digitally shape traffic that you aren't perfectly capable of doing with that traffic once it's in your network.

It's just yet another way of spinning the same thing. For there to be faster queues of traffic there have to be slower queues of traffic. To be able to guarantee you can put a service in a faster queue, it has to have been in a slower queue in the first place.<br><br>As soon as there is ANY form of allowing ISPs to do anything but fling all traffic as fast as they can (within the bounds of the link speed being paid for) there is the groundwork for the ISP's to hold priority service for ransom, both charging to be put on a list for consumers to choose for a fast lane and to charge consumers again to make that selection. Even though consumers already pay to have all their traffic in the FASTEST LANE.

What this means is that an ISP such as AT&amp;T will build a list of services to throttle (most likely competitors in other areas like voice and video) aka the SLOW LANE. What probably happens next is that AT&amp;T offers pricing to become "FASTLANED" aka makes their ransom demands. If a throttled service pays this fee then they will go on a list for consumers. Consumers will then have the option to pay to enable the "fast lane" for that service.<br><br>This creates the illusion of making a service faster... but if they hadn't slowed it down in the first place they couldn't make it any faster. Their switches, their links, the speed of light, none of these things got any faster so by logically flipping a switch. The only way to make things faster by logically switching a switch (assuming no configuration incompetence) is if you weren't slinging packets as fast as you could in the first place.<br><br>
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There are plenty of distributions sure but they are all built on the linux os. Code written on one runs on the others unless you build in high level dependencies. Being fluent in administrating one means you can administrate the others (unless you bought in to distro specific tool kool-aid).

Hardly, they are trying to catch up with Linux which is already literally one OS running and holding a strong footprint on all these things. Of course Linux runs on platforms both smaller and larger than any form of Windows.

Congratulations, Leichtman Research Group you have figured out something that has simply been common knowledge among everyone else since 2005.

I pay $150/mo for cable for one reason only, live streamed sports. For everything else, even if it's on cable, I have my system set up to download high quality encodings to my DVR automatically the moment they become available. Movies, everything coming up that I want gets put in the system and the moment a high quality release becomes available, automatically downloaded to Plex which turns my collection into a meta data filled netflix. The system even meshes high ratings on IMDB and rotten tomatoes with things I've liked in the past and makes suggestions or automatically downloads new movies for me. Music as well, I get suggestions based on my library and new albums from artists in my collection appear automatically generally in lossless FLAC.

Imagine a world where the sports networks, tv networks, mpaa, book publishers, and the riaa banded together to provide a single legal content source where you could get all content in multiple formats and the middle men are all cut out. Live events and movies are unchanged by this and remain the primary money makers. You pick which forms of content you want and maybe pay as much as $50/mo per content type. But at that price point you have unlimited access to all content from that source in a DRM free and metadata rich form that couples nicely with a personal multimedia system at the quality you like be that a lower quality yiffy type rip or full 4k or 1080p blu-ray quality encode. At lower price points maybe there is a cap based on data like 250GB/mo for $25. The distribution of that money and royalties would be determined based on what you actually downloaded. Someone who watches 30 movies a month on their unlimited hollywood package might contribute a smaller royalty to their 3D LOTR download than someone with the same package who watches 10. You could even use my user ratings to weight those royalties. Sort of like how a new deck hand might get a quarter or half share on a fishing boat while most crew members get a full share and someone really good might get a double share.

Since he was looking affordable to him and basing that on residents income small towns in the midwest aren't likely to hit the radar. Those places are cheap because the locals don't make much money and therefore can't afford to pay much.

As for walkability, traffic might be low in a place like that but things are actually more spread out. The denser the population the more walkable somewhere becomes. The reason is simple, in a dense city there are enough people to support a walgreens and mcdonalds every few blocks, there are automatic walk lights and bike lanes, etc.

In a small town there will be only one mcdonalds and one walgreens for the whole town and those might be on opposite ends of town and fry's is likely in a different larger town 30-40min away. There likely are no bike lanes because small towns don't have the budget to be trendy and most people don't ride a bike 3 miles to go to McDonalds.

Hell city suburbs are ridiculously dense and walkable compare with small towns and yet they aren't particularly walkable unless you live in the "downtown" of your burb.