Australia Day 2017

And welcome to Australia Day, a day when Aussies get together, have a few drinks and chat around the BBQ!  We have a superb day here with low 30's forecast and the very very small chance of a shower later on.  The pool is around 28° and is delightful.

Yesterday was our daughter Kate's birthday.  Boy but time passes quickly some times!

Since my last post on Sunday just gone, the weather has cooled off markedly.  There was even one night when the bedroom ceiling fan didn't go on at all!  All in all things are getting back to normal for summer!  We could sure do with some rain though!

I continue to bike ride most mornings but I am now changing the way I ride.  Now I will ride for as long and as far as I want to, depending on the day, how I feel and whatever else is on that day.  One day this week I did 10k's, yesterday I did 16k's.  This morning I didn't do any as I bottled my latest brew.  So during the week I had a bottle washing and sanitizing to do ready for today's chore.

All is now done.  We are hosting the group's Australia Day drinks at our place this afternoon.  There will be roast lamb and coleslaw rolls, party pies etc, satay sticks to pay tribute to the way the country is becoming more cosmopolitan and we will finish up with the Aussie classic ice-cream; Drumsticks!

And there will be beer, wine, spirits and more.  It should be a good day.

The new media player, the Nvidia Shield I bought from Amazon in the U.S. arrived on Tuesday about lunch time.  An hour or so later I had learned the ropes a bit, did a complete 'Reset', then set it up all over again and now it is doing just what I want it to.

It is an expensive item though, around 6x the price I paid for the Sunvell T95M.  But the new one just 'does it', no problems, you can play a file back or stream something from the internet and it just works.  DTS audio works fine, no sudden 'freezes' requiring the power to be pulled and restarted, it just does what it should do.  It connects to my home wireless network immediately.

The cheaper the box, the more temperamental it can be.  With the Nvidia, it just does it all.

I have a wonderful Harmony Remote Control for all our electronic media devices.  So instead of a remote for the TV, the tuner amplifier, the Pay TV, the DVD player and anything else, you have only one remote control.  It took a bit of setting up but to watch Pay TV you press the "Pay TV" button, it turns on the TV, then the Pay TV, it turns on the Tuner/Amp and sets it to the correct 'source' and there it comes on, ready to watch.

The Harmony is Infra Red (IR), that means you point the remote at the media area and it sends out signals to turn things on.  The Nvidia doesn't have an IR receiver, it uses Bluetooth.  With the 'other' android boxes I was able to attach a wireless keyboard and its small USB receiver.  The Nvidia will work this way if I want it to.

Therefore the Harmony Remote won't fully work with the new TV box.  But I can still press "Play Nvidia" and the TV turns on, goes to the correct source and the tuner/amp turns on and goes to the correct source.   The volume is still controlled via the tuner/amp (and the Harmony) but for the rest I use the Nvidia's "Mini Remote".

At this stage I am very happy with the purchase and delighted with the way it works.  Trish and I are both great TV watchers so to buy this unit is seen as a worthwhile because it just 'works'.

And if something is not working or there is a problem, you know the Nvidia company will send out an update to fix any niggling little issues with a firmware update.  That is what you pay for!