I bought a USB TV Stick last week which is supposed to work on Vista, but haven’t been able to get it to work until today. I kept getting an error sayding that PMCLoader.exe was closing. I got this on my 64bit desktop and my 32bit laptop. Frustrating.

I got it solved and will just post what I did in case someone else comes across the same problem and finds this through Google (I couldn’t find anything).

For Vista, you need to download the proper drivers for the stick. These are not on the normal drivers page, so you need to look around a bit. I went to http://cdn.pinnaclesys.com/SupportFiles/PCTV%20Drivers/ReadmePCTV.htm to download the the 64 bit drivers (currently in Beta) for product 71E. Then, go to Device Manager and manually install the driver. The incredibly long Pinnacle software installation (it took over 30 minutes and required a reboot) is worthless. Even now, it tells me I don’t have .net 2 installed (which I know to be false).

For this TV Stick, use Windows Media Centre instead of the bundled Pinnacle software. I’m still setting it all up after four days. I’m not too pleased with this so far.

Last Thursday I had an entire afternoon to myself. It was a perfect time to take the motorcycle out for a few hours and explore. I’m negotiating another London contract at the moment, so I thought it would be the perfect time to find out what it would be like to ride into London on a motorcycle. The train is one of the biggest pains involved in working in London. So I left Wantage and headed down the A34 and M4 and really made good time.

When I got to the Reading services, I put my left foot down to shift down into first. The gear lever wasn’t there. I was going about 60, so I couldn’t really look down. When I pulled up to a stop at the services, I saw that the bolt holding my gear lever in place had fallen out and my gear lever was only held in place by the kick stand. This gear lever, by the way, is the same one I posted about a few months ago that I repaired myself (not so well, I guess).

I took the bike into downtown Reading looking for a bike shop. The bike would still start in 6^th gear, but it sounded terrible and very wobbly. I headed to a motorcycle shop near Caversham bridge that I knew of when I worked in that area?but that shop is now closed. I ended up riding around for an hour before finding the Reading Honda dealership. They were able to look at the bike right away and fixed it while I walked down the road for lunch. It was really great service.

I need to put a list of Honda dealerships on my PDA for these occasions.

We haven’t been hit too bad by the recent flooding here, but lots of people have. On Friday, I finished a contract in Thatcham near Newbury. We were flooded in for most of the day. The road outside the car park looked like a river. Several bins floated by and several cars were totals.

I ventured out for lunchtime and was wading in waist-deep water for part of it. Never stand between an American and his lunch.

It was a bizarre day, since the water was mostly gone by 6pm.

I took a picture of some cars stuck. I never seem to have my good camera when I need it . . .