It’s time to install a home theater and video game projection screen. I’ve been projecting against a white wall for a few years now, but the kids are spending more time at other kids’ houses and starting to complain about my less-than-stellar “projection wall”. I looked online and now I am starting to appreciate the high-end home theater consultants working the market. There are a LOT of options when choosing a projection screen, and they can get expensive.

Whenever I look at one-time purchases like a projection screen, I ask my peers what they have done. Or at least this *should* be a one-time purchase (unless I get the wrong one!). So before I hit the forums, how did you choose your projection screen, which one did you pick, are you happy, and what would you do different next time?

From my initial research I there are popular home theatre forums:

And some tutorials with advice on choosing a projection screen:

And some of the projection screen companies offer excellent online resources:

BUT those are obviously biased. The online projection screen vendors also seem to avoid addressing many of the common concerns when choosing a projection screen, such as white screen or grey screen? What level of “screen gain” is appropriate for my room and my projector, and what effect will viewing angle have on image quality? I understand why they would avoid some of that, because it complicates a purchase decision that has a high barrier for return (shipping a projector screen is not a simple matter). But then again the local home theater specialist is a TON more expensive than Internet shopping. Someone should be able to be the Zappos.com of projection screens, but I haven’t found them yet.

So I wonder, would you buy a projection screen online? Would you build one yourself? Or would you hire a local home theater consultant? I am considering since I will get to see actual products before picking one. I also don’t see any clear winners in the home projection screen market, based on consumer reviews.

My set up:

• Projector: older InFocus DLP projector, like this 750 lumen one but sub-1000 contrast. I will buy a new one soon, but not right away unless that is really important for choosing a screen.
• Room: not a theater by any definition, it is a living room. Light colored walls, high celings with skylights, light colored carpeting. About 25′ x 16′ “theater” area.
• Environment: I live WAY NORTH, so it stays light until 10 o’clock pm in the summer, and the summer is some 17 weeks long. Yes, obviosuly the skylights and wall colors are becoming an issue for me. Yes, of course there are picture windows as well. Lots of them. Hey, it’s beautiful out there!
• Use: Projected games and DVD movies. I don’t subscribe to television, so it won’t be used very often compared to your typical American home projection TV room.

There are more than a few manufacturers of projection screens, whcih makes buying one all the more difficult:

• 3M
• AccuScreens
• Adeo Group
• Arisawa
• AVers
• Beamax- check out the videos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EfYwRwXnTo
• Carada
• Celio
• Custom Display Solutions
• Da-Lite
• dnp Denmark
• Draper
• Dukane
• Elite Screens
• Euroscreen Bjurab
• Goo Systems
• Grandview
• HoloDisplays
• Hurley
• Large Screen Displays
• LP Morgan
• Meler
• Optoma
• Planar
• Projecta b.v.
• RP Visual Solutions
• Saaria
• Screen Innovations
• Screen Research
• Screen Tech
• SCREENMAXX
• Severtson
• Stewart Filmscreen
• The Airscreen Company
• The Screen Works
• Vutec

Google says I should also look for

• portable projection screens
• projectors
• draper projection screens
• home theater screens

Bored? Staring at yet another day of SEO from your desk or laptop, and less than thrilled with the idea? To much grunt work awaiting, so no time to explore and refresh the curiosity brain cells, yet feeling less than stellar in the productivity department due to that blah-zay boredom? Yeah, me too.

Truth is, obligation stifles creativity. But creativity drives productivity for many SEOs like me. The thrill of a “brilliant idea” can spawn highly-productive spurts of activity that outperform competitors, even when they spend weeks buying links. In SEO, the smart strategy outperforms and outlasts all but the most aggressive brute-force methods. So how to you break free of the doldrums while remaining productive? The little things count.

For me today it is my new coffee glass. A simple addition to my desk… it’s a Bodum Pavina thermal goblet. Winner of European design awards, it is elegant and simple. It’s a double-walled, clear thermal glass made of the same high-termperature silica quartz I used for materials testing back in my first engineering job out of college. Light as a feather, it feels like a wine goblet in my hand. It’s cool to the touch, yet filled with steaming hot coffee.

Did that sound like promotional copy? Suspect a “sponsored post” ? Nah. I paid full retail ($20) at a local store I shall not name. I have no connections at all to Bodum. How could something so simple be so motivating? That doesn’t really matter, does it? It feels good, and it’s just for me, and that’s apparently what I needed at the moment.

Related info: I only drink french press coffee at home. I have a Bodum french press, and have had several of them over the years. Starbucks sells Bodum french presses, but not the Pavina glasses. I found them at a local high-end home store… look for a place that sells things like Reidel stemless stemware (another great feel-good addition to the home, by the way).

I write a blog post about PHP, and in the sidebar should be a link roll of PHP jobs.

I write about SEO and in the sidebar should be a link roll of internet marketing jobs.

If I were hiring a web designer, I would target a beautifully rich long tail of attractors for my job listing. I imagine I would appreciate a system that combined these automagically, according to some smart ruleset. I bet, given the vast experience of the contextual advertising engines and the relative uniformity of job offerings, that it would be cake. I bet it would be amenable to optimization, too.

Job click thrus convert as resumes, or at least a conversion lead better than most. And job link click thrus don’t have to go direct to specific jobs… they can go through a lead refinement filter, which, of course, would be like an MFA page, helping to land the job prospect onto the optimal match of a job. “So you like the PHP job, did you see these PHP + MySQL jobs, and these PHP + Perl jobs? Which do you like best (chose one or more…” Taguchi doesn’t apply, cause each lead is unique, and so why rely on initial page context, trying to match perfectly when job seekers expect to seek anyway? That’s why PPC doesn’t pay for individual jobs. Instead, use contextual ads to draw them in… but not into a monster job site. Draw them in to iterate the contextual job text link (MFA) system recursively… it doesn’t break any rules (if the initial job exists), and lets the seeker navigate the way nature intended.

Job placement recruiters get what, 6-10% of the first year’s salary at least?

So in 2007, where are the contextual ads for jobs?