First Post

OK, here goes - my first post. I guess that I should introduce myself and what I aim to accomplish. My name is Ed, and I am interested in techie bits around the home.

For my first few posts, I think I'll be focusing on VOIP and Satellite TV. I have a Dreambox DM500 satellite receiver which is a cute little linux box linked to a cheap Maplin LAN Disk to act as a PVR. At some point I would like to have another go at setting up a MythTV box to do the whole PVR thing, but I ran into problems and out of time when I was looking into this last year.

On the VOIP side, our phone is plugged into a Grandstream HandyTone 488 - this means we can make cheap international calls without needing to switch the PC on or mess about with proprietory systems.

I used to have the HandyTone 486 - this was a slightly simpler unit which had a far better pass-through when needing to use the landline. I may just have been unlucky with this box though. Either way, they have reduced our phone bill dramatically (my brother-in-law has the 486), and my wife can happily natter on for hours without us needing a second mortgage to pay off BT.

The (dis ?)advantage of the HandyTone is that it's not tied to a specific provider, you can just sign up with a company and alter the settings on the box to reflect this.