Resetting your HDHomeRun TV Tuner Automatically

Time Warner Cable is expensive.  Despite that, I still fork over money to them every month.  I try to reduce my costs as much as I can by only subscribing to only their most basic packages, such as the just the basic cable package, which provides only the network channels (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, etc) for around $20 a month.

We don't have one of their cable boxes, which can allow you to record channels and watch them later.  A wonderful service, but I'm way too cheap for that.  Instead, I use a computer to record the channels through the wonderful  SageTV software.  Unfortunately, the SageTV company was bought out by Google and the software can no longer be purchased.

To tune in the channels with the computer, the SageTV software interacts with a nifty device from Silicon Dust called the HDHomerun.  It's a TV tuner that hooks up to your network.  I've been using one of these for years with little complaint.  

Note, though, that I said "little." I had an older model that kept misbehaving.  It took me a couple of months of troubleshooting before giving up and just replacing the device.  Before I got there, I tried a couple of other approaches.  I thought my computer might be the culprit, so I rebuilt it and set it up to reboot every night (as I discussed here a couple of weeks ago).   I also set up the HDHomerun TV tuner to reboot nightly through a quick and dirty program and a scheduled task.

Creating the means to reset the HDHomerun was actually a lot easier than I thought.  I first found this document from Silicon Dust explaining how you can interact with a Silicon Dust program installed on my computer that interacts with the tune (hdhomerun_config.exe).  I then found the following function in the application available through their help file.

set /sys/restart self

This is the command I need to restart the HDHomerun tuner.

I created a bat file with the following line through Notepad.

"c:\Program Files\Silicondust\HDHomeRun\hdhomerun_config.exe"  10324a85 set /sys/restart self

The 10324a85  is the unique number given to my tuner so the hdhomerun_config program knows which tuner to reset.  You can get this number through the HDHomerun Setup program which is accessible through the Start menu. The unique number is listed right here:

I then set up a scheduled task to run this program regularly to reset my tuner.  

For instructions on creating the bat file and setting up the scheduled tasks, I discussed both in a post I did a couple of weeks ago on how to set up your PC to reboot regularly.  The process should be pretty similar.

Even though I've replaced the tuner I was originally using when I set this up, I still reset the new tuner every night.  I figure it doesn't hurt anything.

I'm happy with my setup, but wish I could continue to reduce my cable bill.  In a month or so, I'm going to start experimenting with antennas to see if I can get TV reception over the air.  I'm a bit skeptical, though.  My house is in a pretty wooded area and I'm not too fond of mounting an antenna on my roof.  

Will my frugality and curiosity win out over my fear of heights?  Stay tuned!

Replacing a Bathtub Drain Lever and Lever Cover

Since I moved into my current house, I thought the drain in the kids tub drained like we had filled it with molasses.  Sometimes it would take up to an hour for all the water to finally get out of the tub.

For the longest time, I ignored the problem or just put it in the back of my mind.  I mean, there's always going to be a bigger fish to fry somewhere, right?  Well, since the kid's tub is something we use on a daily basis (more or less :) ), I started Googling a little more each day until it was on the forefront of my mind.

The first thing I noticed was that the lever you pull up that stops the water didn't go up all the way.  Also, the cover that houses the lever was a little dented.  It's old and, I assume, the original in our 35 year old house.  So, after scouring the internet to see if this was something to be meddled with, I decided to attempt to dig into the tub drain.

This "This Old House" Q&A post provided a very handy diagram on how the lever worked with the bathtub, although the question submitter was having a different issue.  It seemed pretty straightforward.

I took the lever off of the bathtub, which was held on by two front facing screws.  I pulled out the linkage and stopper that were attached to the lever.  Here's what it looked like. Note the beautiful puke green tile in our bathroom. :)

Looking at the lever, there was a bunch of really gross calcified gunk that was preventing the lever from going up all the way.  I couldn't get it all off.  Since the gunk was stubbornly stuck on the lever and there was a noticeable dent in the lever cover, I decided that replacing the lever and lever cover would be best.

Off to Home Depot I went to find a new lever and lever cover.  Unfortunately, Home Depot didn't sell the individual components, only a whole draining assembly.  Wanting to get this project over, I went ahead and bought it for around $25.  Here's what it looks like.

I got home and pulled out the the parts I needed from the package.  I then attached the old stopper and linkage to the new lever using a pin that came in the package.  Since the old linkage and stopper are not broken and the stopper and linkage I bought were made out of plastic, I decided to reuse the old parts.  Here's what it looked like after the assembly.

I then screwed the new assembly into the tub and tried out the lever.  It was MUCH smoother and went all the way up and down, just like I wanted.

I then tested it out by filling up the tub a few inches, leaving the water for a few minutes to make sure the stopper is still doing it's job, and then pulling the lever.  The water exited the tub MUCH faster.  

That was pretty much it.  Not counting the drive to Home Depot, the whole replacement process was probably about 15 minutes.

Setting up your Computer to reboot nightly

For whatever reason, my computer's performance began to suffer if left running for too long.  It can be frustrating when you're waiting what feels like an eternity to just open Chrome and do a Google search on my Windows computer!

To address this, I attacked it from a couple of fronts.  First, I uninstalled a bunch of programs that I wasn't using.  Second, I set my computer up to automatically reboot every night, which was a pretty straightforward process.  In essence, I created a program that reboots your computer then set that program to initialize every morning.

First, thanks to Computerhope.com, I figured out how to properly restart my computer through Microsoft's Command Prompt (which I haven't used in ages).  You simply type in "shutdown -r" within Command Prompt and the computer starts the rebooting process.

You can actually bottle this up and turn it into an application. As an application, you can reboot simply by double clicking on it.  Just open Notepad and type the same thing you entered into Command Prompt.

Save the file with the name "Reboot.bat," but not as a txt file. Change the "Save as Type" to "All Files."  Remember where you're saving the file.  You'll need to reference this later.  

Next, create a scheduled task.  A scheduled task can be set up to tell your computer to run a specific program at a specific time.  When you set up the schedule, you can also establish recurrence.  To access the Scheduled Task interface, click the Start button --> All Programs --> Accessories --> System Tools --> Task Scheduler.  

On the corresponding window, click "Create Basic Task."

Another window will appear.  Give your task a name and description.  Press NEXT.

Select how often you'd like your computer reset. Press NEXT.

Select the time you'd like for the reboot to occur.  You can also tweak the frequency if you want the computer to reset every other day or more by changing the Recur value.  When you're done, hit NEXT.

Select "Start a Program" and select the NEXT button.

Select the script we created earlier by pressing the "Browse" button and digging through your folders. Once you select the file, you can press NEXT again.

You'll see this screen.  Hit FINISH.

That's all there is to it!  You can check and make sure you're computer is rebooting by going back into Task Scheduler where your task will be listed along with the last time it successfully run.  We can talk about that in another post.