Welcome to a new year and my first update in a couple weeks.

Since my last post a few things have changed.  I haven’t shaved in a couple weeks and have somewhat of a trimmed beard going on.  I don’t think it will be staying long, but it is here for the time being.

I lost the Fantasy Football Super Bowl.  I should have taken into consideration that the Play-Offs were set in stone and everyone would be benched and picked up some second string guys.  I guess my lack of preparation was my enemy.

I got FIOS installed; I really wanted faster internet service as we have had problems with Comcast since 2006-2007.  I personally have a fondness of online games, primarily World of Warcraft and also play all of my xbox games against other individuals online.  My son has a fondness for Netflix streamed on the xbox and my wife likes to watch YouTube videos.  Image trying to play World of Warcraft, Streaming Netflix, and Watching YouTube all while a torrent is being pulled at the same time.  Epic Fail on cable!  Increase your bandwidth more than double and you have no issue, thank you FIOS.  I downloaded a 30 minute video clip at an amazing 2.1MBps, I used to cap out around 500 – 700 kbps on cable.  Needless to say, I love the increase in internet speed, but that isn’t the end of it, let’s talk about FIOS TV.  The FIOS essentials package is equal to Extended Cable + a couple packages and a lot cheaper.  Comcast had the NFL Network on as an extra, it is included with FIOS and I get the MLB, NBA , and NHL Network.  I also have the YES network (Yankees for those that don’t know), but I can’t find a way to block it.  All-in-all, this has been an interesting start to the New Year and FIOS has been a great addition.

Somewhere between the age of 2 and 3, my son learned how to use the DVD player and so began a fascination with it.  We started his collection with a variety of Thomas and Friends DVDs.  We were constantly running into problems with the DVDs as he was using them correctly in the DVD player, but he was neglecting them outside the DVD player.  Instead of buying duplicates of his DVDs, we found a free way of making duplicates.

I guess since everyone in the entertainment industry is sue happy, let me preface this by saying I did not create the tools you are about to use and I don’t suggest running to Netflix, Redbox, or Blockbuster and making a copy of your favorite DVD.  This how-to is strictly for making a backup of media you already own.

There are two tools that I use for this process:

DVD Shrink (To create the image)

ImgBurn (To burn the image)

You will need to install the above tools to continue.  Once the tools are installed, we will create a backup

My son has allowed us to use his copy of Thomas’s Sodor Celebration

Open DVD Shrink and click Open Disk and select your DVD Drive, the following screen will appear while the application analyzes you DVD.

DVD Shrink Open DVD

You can uncheck the Enable video preview if you feel the application is overtaking your resources.

Once DVD Shrink has analyzed your DVD, you can select the Backup option to create a backup of your DVD.

DVD Shrink Open File Screen

For the most part, the details are pretty self explanatory.  This will create an image on your Hard Drive in the C:\ directory called Thomas_Sodor_Celebration.  I would suggest making on change for the “ease of use” factor.  I am going to switch the target from “Hard Disk Folder” to “ISO Image File” to ensure we only have one large file to deal with rather than multiple small files (which advanced users may prefer for data transfer).

Selecting the image format on DVD Shrink

Once you click OK your DVD will begin the backup phase, may take some time, so go ahead and browse the internet.

Once you open ImgBurn will see a few options, the options on the Left will Burn, the options on the Right will create.  The only reason we did not use Imgburn to create our Thomas DVD is due to the fact it cannot duplicate some encryption types where as we have been able to duplicate everything with DVD Shrink so far.  Since we created an ISO file, we want to select Write Image File to Disk.

ImgBurn Main Menu

To locate your file, you can click on the folder with the magnify glass or click File -> Browse for a source file.  Since we know we saved it to our C:\, a search of our C:\ drive shows the Thomas Image File.  Highlight the file and click OK.

ImgBurn File Locator

Now insert the DVD and click on the burn icon highlighted below and you have successfully create a duplicate of your DVD.

ImgBurn Creation Screen

I’m not sure if anyone picked up on the screenshots, but I created a Thomas DVD and burned The Cat In The Hat DVD.  Just thought I would mix it up, no seriously though, my son wanted a copy of  The Cat In The Hat.

It is official, I made the playoffs.

I play in a 12-man fantasy football league that had an online live draft, unfortunately I was in the process of flying back from Jacksonville, FL while everyone was drafting.  I can’t remember the players I had been defaulted, but they were horrible.  To this day, the only two that remain my originals are MJD and Reggie Wayne.

The first four weeks of the league, I went 0-4 and picked up everyone I could off the free agent wire.  Being the lowest scoring individual, I got first choice.  Until players proved their worth, I usually picked based on match-ups and it worked.  I went from last in my division to first.  The only problem with that was my losing to everyone in my division would bump me in the case of a tie and that was the case last week.

Our league only has 4 teams go into the playoffs, each division winner and one wildcard.  Last week, I was tied with our division leader and wasn’t looking at the wildcard spot.  I won my game as expected, but the division leader went into Monday night with a 30 point lead over his opponent and I wasn’t confident he would be upset.  Low and behold, the upset came through and I am in the playoffs.

This week the playoffs and if all goes well, I will be in the Super Bowl next week.  Wish me luck!

Also, to put it in writing, I am fully aware the Pittsburgh Steelers have no chance of making it into the playoffs.

Thank you for visiting my blog and I appreciate your patience while I get everything situated.

Instead of using multiple social networking tools, I am hoping to bring everything here and limit my updated on the other sites.  I will probably keep an active update on Twitter as that appears to be where everyone is at the moment.

You can find me on Twitter by going to: http://www.twitter.com/Type2Logic