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Small 19″ TV Set – Insignia NS-19E310NA15 (Product Review)

06/12/2015 Score Card

I wanted a small TV to set beside my computer in my office and quickly check news or sports easily and quickly. My prior (CRT) TV would power up from a 12 volt power source so this was an important requirement. In case of a disaster our family could pick up any surviving TV station signals in the area by connecting the TV to the car battery. I also wanted this next TV to be connected to my laptop so I was looking for an RGB input connector.
For emergency command operations that must rely on battery power, this TV might be an asset. This TV also allows viewing of photo images from USB port so if an incident commander is given photographs from a photographer, they can be viewed and zoomed in for better closeup inspections. For ham radio operators that might need a second monitor connected to their laptop (APRS & Winlink). This TV has that capability.

Manufacturer: Insignia
Model: NS-19E310NA15

Features:
19 inch screen, LED, 720P & 60 HZ
HDMI = 2
VGA = 1
USB = 1
Component = 1
Digital Audio Out (Coaxial) = 1
Headset Out = 1
Antenna/Cable = 1

TV Set Controls:
In case you can not find your remote control the settings can be changed by buttons along the top right. I plan to label the location of each button with a label on the front bezel so I don’t have to look at the TV from the top.

Setup menu, for me, was quite good.

Screen:
This screen is not high definition. I am extremely demanding for good clarity and realistic flesh tones. When using Time Warner cable box, the sharpness was OK but the human flesh tones looked pasty.
Blacks look deep and have scale.
Whites and contrast are a bit of a disappointment for me. They looked like they were clipping. I ran a diagnostic DVD and it confirmed that the whites easily clipped and lacked scale. But, for casual viewing, most people would not notice nor care.
The image did not seem to change color or brightness much horizontally but it did change when your vertical angle changed.
Vertical = high = lightened up
Vertical = low = screen darkened.

Remote control features were very good and easy to navigate. I especially liked the “Aspect” button. The TV defaulted to “Auto” aspect but I wanted the image to fill the screen. I just hit the “Aspect” button and the image would change size.
The channel search function worked perfectly for me. There have been reports that the tuner will not stay on a set channel, possibly if the antenna signal is interrupted. (I did find this – look at “Outdoor Antenna” below)

A small item to note is that the remote does have “Insignia” name on the remote. My Time Warner cable remote has no name and I have reached for the wrong remote a couple of times by mistake.

Sound lacks base but because there is audio output that can feed speakers. I found the audio quite acceptable. I got loud audio when I turned up the remote audio buttons. I also hooked up computer speakers to this TV set and the sound was very good.

Antenna signal:
Time Warner Cable = comes in as an analog NOT digital signal. The TV set scan for channels actually found 2 analog stations, one good the other same but real noisy and bad. The images looked like standard definition, OK but not good. The images look a bit pasty. I attribute this to Time Warner not providing a really good signal.
Outdoor Antenna = image looks way better than Time Warner Cable. If the antenna is not getting a really good signal the image will go to still with or without breakup. I would guess that a really good antenna is necessary.

HDMI Inputs: I seemed to get improved sound when using the HDMI inputs compared to the Time Warner cable box. It seemed crisper and louder. I hooked up a DVD Blue-Ray player so I would have another signal source that would be way better than the Time Warner cable box and the image looked quite good and crisp audio (Audio still lacking deep base).

USB Port:
As soon as I slipped a USB finger drive into the TV set, a screen menu showed “PHOTOS” and three options:
Browse Photos places you into seeing the folders on the memory card. I had a folder labeled “Photos” for my test and it showed along with other folders in the drive. When a photo is selected, you can even rotate it but only while viewing. It will not save the rotation. When you go into slideshow, the image goes back to how it was shot.
Favorite Photos Can’t figure this out yet.
Start Slide Show The slide show will show each image you have in order as to how it resides in the folder. If an image is not rotated correctly the browse function will not correct for this. The slide show cycles only once and then goes back to displaying the folders and small image files. I think this feature is rather useless. I have looked to see if there is a setting to keep the slide show repeating but so far can not.
Zoom is offered as a sub menu item . Choices are Fill, 2X, 4X.
When the USB drive is inserted, You can get the TV to go to any other function by pressing INPUT button. If there is no USB drive inserted into that input, the whole screen goes black and shows “USB device was removed”.
The photo images seemed to be really good. It seemed that the whites held more detail. This tells me that the screen is more capable than the Time Warner Cable box.

Other Features:
Closed Caption On, Off, On when mute is turned on (clever).
Sleep Timer
INLink:
I was able to control my Blue-Ray DVD player from the TV remote. The manual indicates that the remote can control Time Warner devices.

The Bad: I tried to play a DVD “Ride Along” using HDMI cable between a Blue-Ray player and the TV set. I could not get the promotion videos to output audio. The movie was OK but not the short intro videos. I am suspicious that there is a audio format compatibility issue.

Summary: this TV does not give a high definition image nor is the audio real high quality. It is surprisingly good in the kitchen, desktop or given to a child. Its features are impressive.

AAA Battery Roadside Service Is Shockingly Impressive.

05/25/2015 Score Card

AAA Battery Roadside Service Is Shockingly Impressive

My wife and daughter tell me that our Toyota Camry will not start up. I ask them to turn on the head lights and they look dim. I get my volt ohm meter and read just over 9 volts across the battery terminals. I tell them to use another family car and I will go get another battery. I have changed out car batteries in the past and it is very easy, should take a couple of hours to shop for a replacement and swap it out. I look at the date code sticker on the battery and it shows being over 6 years old. But, all of a sudden I remember seeing AAA battery service vehicles from time to time. Our family has AAA Roadside Service (California) and I call their number (800-AAA-HELP). They can get a person out within 30 minutes, I was told. The battery cost is just over $100 and the service call is included in us paying for AAA roadside service. The local company who contracts with AAA, Brea (California) Towing, service technician shows up in about 10 minutes. He checks my AAA card and pulls out two test equipment boxes, analyzer and I think a battery. He uses the large analyzer to scan the car VIN identification tag in the drive door frame and knows the year of the car immediately and thus the battery needed for my car.

He hooks up the analyzer and quickly determines that the battery has a bad cell. He then checks our charging system and finds that it is working fine. The tester prints out two paper reports, one he keeps and the second he hands to me.

Below is partial copy of the print out form the tester that I was given showing that our battery has a bad cell.

He removes the analyzer and inserts a backup battery across the car power terminals while he replaces the old battery with a new one. The reason he does this is so we do not loose the saved radio stations stored in the car radio. The technician has our battery in his truck and installs it. Their batteries all say AAA but I am told they are made by Interstate Batteries. The battery we received had a CCA (cold crank amps) of 700! The whole process is completed within the time they told me the service technician would arrive, 30 minutes. I was shocked at how fast this whole repair process took.

My analysis:

The whole process was incredibly, shockingly, fast.
I was guessing that the battery was bad (good guess). For this company to come out with a very sophisticated tester and pinpoint the problem to be the battery and not the charging system is very important.
The battery cost was very reasonable ($119.88 total). I checked and my research shows that I actually saved money by using this service, about $30.
I got a CCA rating that is impressive, 700.
The battery has a 3 year free replacement and a 6 year limited warranty.
The car radio saved stations do not get erased.
I did not have to drive to a store and pick up the battery. I did not have to drive back to the store to return the bad battery. I did not have to do the installation.

Macintosh iPhoto Library Images Lost With Yosemitie Upgrade

05/08/2015 Score Card

I have a friend who recently upgraded his very old iMac to Yosemite. He then realized that he could not find his old iPhoto images. He had made a number of mistakes which I list next:

He did not back up his hard drive prior to this major system upgrade.
He did not use Time Machine.
He did not have an iCloud backup solution
He did not have an external hard drive or USB finger drive copy of his photo images.

We checked the Internet for a solution but we could not find one. It seems that with the recent software system upgrade, Apple changed iPhoto Library. I was able to find the images for him using this method.

NOTE: This method might not work for you. Proceed with caution.

Please note that the folders you will see will not exactly match my images.

Following are the steps taken for recovery:

1. Do a Finder search for iPhoto Library and select it when it shows. (Do NOT choose Library.iPhoto).

2. Highlight the file when you find it with your mouse or track pad. press Control key to reveal hidden files and folders.

3. Press your Control key while iPhoto Library is selected and “Show Package Contents” will appear within a large menu. Highlight “Show Package Contents” so we can see what is inside that folder.

4. Mouse click “Show Package Contents” and it should open to show a whole long list of more files and folders as seen below. Select “Masters” folder and open it.

5. Make sure you open “Masters” and once you do, it should show another long list of sub folders with year dates.

6. Inside each year folder will be month and day sub folders and then your .jpg images.

I hope this works for you.

Aside comment: I keep running into people who have important photo images on their cell phones and computers with no backups. You might think we have vastly improved our technology with digital cameras but film cameras archive way better than digital. Think of hard drives as light bulbs; they burn out. Think of solid state hard drives as longer life light bulbs. DVD disks are a long term possibility but not as good as film. Right now, I have no idea of how to solve this archive issue other than shoot film. When storing DVD disks and film, make sure you treat these media properly so you can retrieve the data way into the future.

Apple Farm, San Luis Obispo, California, United States of America

04/03/2015 Score Card

Our family loves the Apple Farm Inn located in San Luis Obispo, California. We have been coming here for years.

Front view of the restaurant to your right and the gift center to your left. The inn portion requires that you drive into the parking lot behind the buildings you see in this image and enter the hotel behind.

Note: this review is for the hotel and not the motor inn. We have never stayed at the Apple Farm Trellis Court portion of this property. We were told that rooms are half the size and only one bed. They do cost less than the inn. You are next to the Apple Farm Restaurant.

The Apple Tree Inn is the hotel which we review in this post. The inn sits behind the gift shop and restaurant. You need to drive into the parking lot beside the gift shop to view the inn shown in the image above.

What we like about the Apple Farm Inn:

Its location is very good. It is right off the 101 highway. You can walk about 20 minutes down Monterrey Street to get to the downtown. There is also a trolley that costs 50 cents one way and stops right in front of this hotel. There are other restaurants that are not too far away you can walk too. Caution: When coming up from the south on the 101 make sure you take the correct off ramp, Monterrey. We failed once to do this once and because this hotel is at the north extreme of town and where the 101 enters a canyon, there were no roads to turn around for quite a few miles.
Rooms are really cute, spacious, clean, comfortable, quiet and not too expensive. The room air conditioner is very good. You can set a temperature for the room and we have not found any past AC units to be noisy. The windows can also be opened for fresh air. Every room has a gas fireplace which, by the way, does heat up the room.

Room-323 — Room 323. Note that the Apple Farm is conducting renovations so this room may look different in the future.

Parking is convenient and easy to navigate.
There is a very good restaurant on the property. The menu, service, and ambiance is good. The food we had here was better than places we ate in town. We noticed that food dishes now have a way higher quality. The cooks really are doing an excellent job.
There is also a gift shop that is quite large.
They also sell bakery items for sale.
You will get 2 very large chocolate chip cookies when you check in.
You get complimentary wine each night (one glass per person) from 3 pm to 7 pm.
Each room has two 10 fl oz of Martinelli’s Apple Juice. Two 500 ml purified waters are provided. Coffee for the coffee maker is also in the bathroom with the coffee maker. We use the coffee maker to make tea. Tea bags of various flavors are offered near the front desk along with small packets of honey.
A free local newspaper, the San Luis Obispo Tribune, is just outside your door each morning.
Look carefully in the basket holding the juice as you will find some chocolate kisses.
In the closet are two rather thick terry cloth bathrobe you can use during your stay.
Free WiFi.
There is a heated pool and hot tub.
Each night from 3:30 pm to 5 pm they feature a different local winery for a wine tasting. They also offer some simple snacks along with the wine.
The hotel lobby rotates different drinks depending upon what part of the day it is. Morning you can find coffee with cream and sugar. Evening you may find tea and coffee.

What we do not like:

When we make tea in our room and use tap water we noticed large particle floaties. This typically means the water is not that pure. The Apple Farm provides two 500 ml free purified drinking water each day for each room. We use that water and purified water we bring from home to make our tea. It would be nice for San Luis Obispo to do a better job of filtering their water.

2015 Monterey Street
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401
[email protected]
Phone: 1-800-255-2040 or 805-544-2040
Web site: http://www.applefarm.com/

I would like to thank Gustavo who works at the Apple Farm front desk for proofing the content of this post (April 3, 2015).

August 2016 update for one hotel room #100: Room 100 Allegedly Flawed

July 7, 2017 update: The Apple Farm offers a $5 dining credit with their Green Apple Program. I do not recommend it. We put the door knob placard out and found that nothing had been done to our room We did not get apple juice, nor water, nor new towels, nor fresh sheets, etc. The placard appears to tell room service not to enter to do anything!

Room 209 has a few minor flaws. The commode does not properly flush. The activation handle needs to be raised upward after pushing down to activate the flush. If you fail to do this it never stops flushing, thus wasting lots of water.

The second mistake is the electrical wiring in the bathroom. The light switch over the sink also turns on the vent over the shower and tub. The second switch illuminates near the tub only. The tub light should be married to the exhaust vent.

When I come to this hotel, many of the rooms have sink faucet handles that turn the wrong way, quite odd.

I did not enjoy the guest wine tasting reception held every night, July 7, 2017. They moved this event to the Garden Room. This is a much smaller space and lacks enough tables. I like to bring my study materials such as books or laptop and writing materials and place them on a table to conduct work while drinking their free wine. The Garden Room was way too small and lacked enough tables in their patio area.

Novo Restaurant Lounge, San Luis Obispo, California, United States of America

04/03/2015 Score Card

My wife and I were taking a walking tour of downtown San Luis Obispo and decided it was time for lunch. We had no idea of where to eat so we walked into an upscale clothing store and asked one of the sales ladies where a good place to eat for lunch. She recommended Novo and told us where it was located. We thanked her for her recommendation and once out of their shop I looked the restaurant up on my cell phone and the restaurant indeed had a very impressive consumers collective score.

Novo-Restaurant — Front of restaurant, street view. There are two doors on either side of the front window. You can enter either door.

When we arrived at this place, we found two similar doors on either side of the front. We could not figure out which door to use. Both open into the bar. Once inside you find yourself in a dark illuminated bar with some dining tables in front of the bar.

20150404_125653_resized — This is what you will see when you first enter the restaurant from the street. (There is a second entrance from the creek side). When we first arrived the front of the restaurant was quite dark, which is why I described the bar as being dark.

If you want to eat on the patio, take the long hallway back past the bar, the restrooms and kitchen until you come out of the building again on to their patio. It was slightly interesting to find waiters and waitresses standing along both sides of the wall between the kitchen door and the back patio.

20150404_125821_resized — This is the narrow hallway that links the front bar area to the back patio. Along this hallway are the restrooms and kitchen. This image was greatly brightened. It is normally quite dark. (This shot actually is taken from the patio side looking toward the bar).

Once out of the main building, walk up to the hostess station in front of you and they will seat you.

2015-04-04 13.32.32_resized — As you end your walk down the long dark hallway to the patio, you come upon a raised deck where the host station is. Check in here to be seated. Note the chairs along both sides of this deck for people to sit and wait their turn to be seated.

20150404_140543_resized — This view of the patio dining at the back of the restaurant is taken from a rather high bridge which links both sides of a narrow creek, behind the restaurant.

What we liked:

This restaurant has a large back patio which we enjoyed. They put up large umbrellas because the day was hot. I noticed that they have rows of heaters along the creek. One umbrella was slightly burned probably being placed too close to the heaters.
Service was good.
The salmon bisque was very good. This one dish, for me is the reason to go here. It was full of seafood and vegetables.
The sandwiches were good.

What we did not like:

The table napkins were too small and light. I would really like to see much larger napkins with a heavier weight to them.

Location: 726 Higuera Street
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401
Phone 805.543.3986
Web site: http://www.novorestaurant.com/

Minor Lessons In Life.

03/24/2015 Score Card

Never put drink, keys or cell phone on roof of vehicle to help you get into the vehicle. Instead, put objects, that you care about, on the front hood of the vehicle.

Never ask a women how many months it will be, if she appears to be expecting birth.

Parents should not tell their children of their really stupid acts when they were younger.