Thanks to the link by Exiled to Canada, I was able to find another link here, and set up the theoretical xbox to my laptop.
Its kinda funny, because I just happened to buy a crossover cable like 6 years ago for some reason, and kept it in my little bag o’ junk for all this time, where it survived 4 or so throwaway purges because I figured ONE DAY, it might come in handy.
That day is today.
So, I have a sufficiently geeky hack around spending all that stupid money to M$, and didn’t have to set my router on fire to do it. Hells yes.
Actually, the laptop is a Media Center edition and (ahem) an actual legitimate copy, so I started the process to move all my music and crap to the thing. Problem is, the music and crap will swamp the hard drive on both the lappy and the xbox, so I need to figure out a sufficiently hacky way to watch my episode of Heroes that I’m downloading through the xbox on the bitchin HDMI connection.
I’m not even really sure whats up with it. I don’t think I had more than 3 or so cups this morning. Granted, I slept well, and had nothing to eat (yet), but damn. Its right on top of me. I’m buzzing like a vibra… like a broken ceiling fan. Or something.
Or maybe like a controller from an xbox 360. Not that I bought one of those yesterday. Or that it looks DAMN good on my fancy TV, what with the HDMI connection, and the 1080i picture. No, because that’d be an egregious waste of money. Yes, egregious. I had to look that one up.
However, the theoretical Xbox presents a theoretical problem, one that has been festering in the back end of my mind for some time, but one that demands a quick solution:
Hooking that bastard up to the home network…
Now, those of you in the know know that I had what I like to call the ATivo going on, whereas the computer can push data (usually in the form of TV shows) to either of my TVs. I actually wrote a piece about it a while back, complete with a nice little picture, but the problem is that the whole things kinda been mothballed, because digital cable prevents the use of the RF modulator that was the key in the whole darn kitenkaboodle.
Not that the theoretical xbox has much to do with that. I’m getting there.
Now, right now, I gots three computers, the big guy in the living room, the littler guy in MastaG’s room, and the lappy in my room. They’re all kicking back on the mighty beams of my wifi network here, joined occasionally by my phone and whoever can break the encryption to wardrive on my little network (if they can break the 128 bitness, they’re welcome to it).
Thing is, the wifi connector for this theoretical xbox is like a hundred freakin dollars. Bugger that.
I mean, I bought two little desktop wifi connectors for like 5 bucks apiece. Its not like its space age technology, people. Seriously. 100 bucks, so I can hook the dumb old thing up to the wifi.
Hell with that.
So, looks like I gotta run ethernet. Thing is, if I’m going to get underneath the house, and run cables and crap, I might as well redo the whole darn works.
But I don’t think the coffee buzz can sustain all that.
These days, I’m just not as into home improvements in that way. I mean, I recognize the use in doing that sorta stuff, but I can’t be arsed to do it. Its bad enough keeping the house clean and the boys in fresh underwear, without trying to hop up in crawlspaces with wire in my teeth. Sure, I can do it, and yes, I fully recognize the fact that I’m a lazy bastard (woot), but the needful just isn’t there as of yet.
So, I’m trying to find another solution. However, that theoretical xbox just really wants to be able to connect to the other computers, and talk shop, and hang out, and maybe share some files. Its all lonely in there (theoretically), and I gotta do something about it.
Just without spending a hundred freakin dollars. Seriously, Microsoft, you suck.