I Believe that Introductions are in Order

Hello Missing Remote readers. As this is my first blog posting, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Zach Christiansen (those of you who are observant already knew that) and I am a third year law student at Tulane University, with an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering from Georgia Tech.

I have always been “Technical Support” for my family and friends. My first experience with anything resembling a home theater PC (HTPC) was when I convinced my parents to buy the first ATI All-in-Wonder for our home computer. We bought the card because my mom had made a slide show on the computer for my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary, but didn’t have a great way to share it with family and friends. Using the All-in-Wonder, we were able to output the computer display through a VCR (I still find it funny to think that at the time a VCR was cutting-edge technology) and record multiple copies for my aunts and uncles. Since that first experience, I have built several HTPC’s for myself as well as family members. My youngest sister’s favorite part about her Windows XP Media Center was showing her friends her free “TiVo” that her big brother had built for her.

But enough about me… lets take a look at my HTPC setup:

Currently I have an HTPC as well as a home server. I alsohave two netbooks (ASUS 1000 HA) that my wife and I each use for light computing (general web surfing, IM, email, etc.), as well as a Macbook Pro that my wife uses for photo editing/blogging <shamelessplug> (http://www.newlywedinneworleans.com </shamelessplug> The HTPC is directly connected to my main TV which is an LG 32FZ4D-UA (older 1080i, HDMI capable CRT display that must suffice for the time being. I use RDP from the netbooks to access the HTPC and WHS to perform maintenance/updates etc. Before I get to the pics, I thought I would lay out the basic specs of the HTPC and WHS.

Now for the pictures

Then there is the real master of my home theater, my cat Hobolochito.

And that is it for the introduction. I look forward to interacting with all of you here at Missing Remote.