I am amazed at how many things can Apple get us to accept as normal, and -sometimes- even as better.
First, it was the brilliant move from Apple's side to force every customer to attach an unlimited data plan to the iPhone. This single clause in the contract had more influence on user experience than any of the technical aspects of the iPhone, so this one was -as bold as it was- an unusual one. But we accepted it.
This was accompanied by its huge size. Yes, the screen is great, and it is more or less thin, but let's be honest, it is almost the size of my 1999 Palm Pilot. Granted, it had a little apple on the back. Accepted.
Then the dubious reception and voice quality (at least on the first versions). There they went, the happy iPhone users predicating that it was just "a minor nuisance" on a super-innovative phone.
The last one, -and one that we live with every day- the on-screen keyboard.
I swear. The one app that iPhones should come with, and that no user should be able to uninstall, is a spell checker. Spelling errors and typos must have gone through the roof since the adoption of this device. Oddly enough, I just read that iPhones have surpassed Blackberries in the domestic market. This means that the trusted little keyboard that so many users swore by, has been traded for the unreliable, jittery touchscreen.
So we not only accept this, we embrace it.
I am wondering if the Apple effect could be translated to other concepts and make us accept those things that are "the right thing to do" even if they mean increased costs or moving away from our comfort zone. How about an iBus that would make us take public transport instead of our own car? or An iBulb that will finally convince us that turning off the light bulb when we have left the room IS a good idea? iMortgage, a product that gets banks to assume their share of the Real Estate bust? Anybody iBurger, made of organic stuff that costs $20?
For now, let me try to convince my teenage daughter that an Oldsmobile is a great car. I hope this little Apple sticker works...
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
The "unconvergence" age
Everything is cyclic. In business and technology we see it all the time. We push, push, push and there is a point where the market stops us as saying "that's just way too much".
The convergent device has been great. Being able to integrate phone with PDA and then being able to GPS locate and email almost everything on the device is just fantastic.
However, I find myself more and more in a situation where I would rather prefer a second device, an example is when I am driving following a map and suddenly somebody calls.
The question here is how do we approach this? I can think of three basic solutions:
1.- Better and smarter peripherals. If the audio interface and a second display on goggles could be an option, maybe -and just maybe- we won't need a second device.
2.- The dedicated device collection. We tried this, and while we somewhat like it, it is not the Holy Grail. Carrying a collection of dedicated devices is not a good answer.
3.- The second, multipurpose, connected device. One is not enough? Try two! Not a brilliant idea but if we can limit the number of devices that we carry to two, and both can do everything we can dream of, we also get redundancy. To some extent this is happening with the arrival of the iPad. In fact many appleheads just think in "number of Apples I own". Good for Jobs, that is Steve Jobs.
4.- The interactive environment. Let's expand on concept 1. Turn your car into a peripheral. When you sit in your car, your device works like a security token and information is shared. Suddenly you have access to the map on your personal device and display it on the dashboard, or your phone can use the car stereo, and the car marks your calendar for the oil change. To some extent we are there. Now expand that thought to Home and the big screen TV, or the office's keyboard, mouse and monitor and desk phone.
Whichever way we go, the key here is to establish the real, secure Personal Area Network. Is Bluetooth ready for this?
The convergent device has been great. Being able to integrate phone with PDA and then being able to GPS locate and email almost everything on the device is just fantastic.
However, I find myself more and more in a situation where I would rather prefer a second device, an example is when I am driving following a map and suddenly somebody calls.
The question here is how do we approach this? I can think of three basic solutions:
1.- Better and smarter peripherals. If the audio interface and a second display on goggles could be an option, maybe -and just maybe- we won't need a second device.
2.- The dedicated device collection. We tried this, and while we somewhat like it, it is not the Holy Grail. Carrying a collection of dedicated devices is not a good answer.
3.- The second, multipurpose, connected device. One is not enough? Try two! Not a brilliant idea but if we can limit the number of devices that we carry to two, and both can do everything we can dream of, we also get redundancy. To some extent this is happening with the arrival of the iPad. In fact many appleheads just think in "number of Apples I own". Good for Jobs, that is Steve Jobs.
4.- The interactive environment. Let's expand on concept 1. Turn your car into a peripheral. When you sit in your car, your device works like a security token and information is shared. Suddenly you have access to the map on your personal device and display it on the dashboard, or your phone can use the car stereo, and the car marks your calendar for the oil change. To some extent we are there. Now expand that thought to Home and the big screen TV, or the office's keyboard, mouse and monitor and desk phone.
Whichever way we go, the key here is to establish the real, secure Personal Area Network. Is Bluetooth ready for this?
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Bump is Magic
If something is true about my Myers-Briggs profile (ENTJ if you ask...) is that I get easily fascinated and entertained by ideas and concepts. This is one of those cases.
For those of you who don't know, "Bump" is an app that runs both on iPhone and Android and allows you to share your contact info by "bumping" your phones against each other.
By an elaborate and innovative flow of information the user is fooled into believing that the act of touching the two phones is doing the trick, while the devices in fact don't have anything that allows for this!
What is really happening is that the devices connect to a central server, notifying that they want to exchange a set of data, and when the accelerometer detects that the phone is "bumped", the server tries to match the GPS coordinates with another phone being bumped at the very same precise moment. Clever huh?
It is like a coordinate-authenticated PAN (Personal Area Network).
The part that I really get hung up on is that this is like faking a punch and having the other being put out by lightning!
I guess Arthur C. Clarke was right, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
For those of you who don't know, "Bump" is an app that runs both on iPhone and Android and allows you to share your contact info by "bumping" your phones against each other.
By an elaborate and innovative flow of information the user is fooled into believing that the act of touching the two phones is doing the trick, while the devices in fact don't have anything that allows for this!
What is really happening is that the devices connect to a central server, notifying that they want to exchange a set of data, and when the accelerometer detects that the phone is "bumped", the server tries to match the GPS coordinates with another phone being bumped at the very same precise moment. Clever huh?
It is like a coordinate-authenticated PAN (Personal Area Network).
The part that I really get hung up on is that this is like faking a punch and having the other being put out by lightning!
I guess Arthur C. Clarke was right, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Friday, August 27, 2010
The retro-ignorant
We had more technology evolution in the last century than in all of human history before that. Those that are near their 40s today are witneses of the proverbial shift, not as experienced by our generation but more by observing that of our parents and our children.
My father in law was a very intelligent and agile man, who travelled half of the world routinely. He was both exposed to the advances of the Old World, as well as the enormous cultural differences present in South America. He was also a fan of shooting home movies on "Super-8" as many in his generation.
In the 80s, when the then new generation of Camcorders was out he decided to buy one. My wife and her siblings would make fun of him as he kept adjusting the camcorder's position -now plugged into the TV- to "project" the image to the screen. Obviously, he was having a hard time assimilating the new technology and opted on relying on his past experience.
Another example was my own father, having worked as a mainframe programmer for almost 25 years, had a hard time digesting the relative "ease of use" of Windows 95.
This used to be the norm, older people would "get stuck" on the older technology and younger, smarter generations would take their place and would master BOTH the newer technology and the old one. In this same year, anybody my age would be equally proficient handling the camcorder/VCR/TV or the Super 8 projector.
What is interesting today, is that technology is evolving at such a pace that learning the newer technologies does not allow for any room to understand the old ones, and this comes to equally embarassing ignorance. Retro Ignorance. Just a few examples: A 15 year old (unless is a DJ) would not know how to play a Vinyl or a Cassette tape, the fact that you cannot skip immediately to another song would puzzle them. I have seen them trying multi-touch gestures on non-touch screens. They don't understand how a car works, connect to the Internet through a modem, operate a typewriter, drive a stick-shift, the list keeps going on and on.
My father in law was a very intelligent and agile man, who travelled half of the world routinely. He was both exposed to the advances of the Old World, as well as the enormous cultural differences present in South America. He was also a fan of shooting home movies on "Super-8" as many in his generation.
In the 80s, when the then new generation of Camcorders was out he decided to buy one. My wife and her siblings would make fun of him as he kept adjusting the camcorder's position -now plugged into the TV- to "project" the image to the screen. Obviously, he was having a hard time assimilating the new technology and opted on relying on his past experience.
Another example was my own father, having worked as a mainframe programmer for almost 25 years, had a hard time digesting the relative "ease of use" of Windows 95.
This used to be the norm, older people would "get stuck" on the older technology and younger, smarter generations would take their place and would master BOTH the newer technology and the old one. In this same year, anybody my age would be equally proficient handling the camcorder/VCR/TV or the Super 8 projector.
What is interesting today, is that technology is evolving at such a pace that learning the newer technologies does not allow for any room to understand the old ones, and this comes to equally embarassing ignorance. Retro Ignorance. Just a few examples: A 15 year old (unless is a DJ) would not know how to play a Vinyl or a Cassette tape, the fact that you cannot skip immediately to another song would puzzle them. I have seen them trying multi-touch gestures on non-touch screens. They don't understand how a car works, connect to the Internet through a modem, operate a typewriter, drive a stick-shift, the list keeps going on and on.
Monday, August 23, 2010
"Three factor" authentication
It is truly amazing how human nature prevails. As much as we try to change, rule and regulate human behavior, there are examples in every field.
It is a known fact that when tax rates increase about a certain threshold, revenues begin to drop as evasion becomes more common place. The fiercest regimes are usually the ones that fall quicker.
But this blog is not supposed to be about sociology or politics, but about technology and management and in reality the issue that prompts me to write this time is the obsession of some IT Security departments to implement every single possible "best practice" as security measures. Two-factor authentication is one and the most common version is the security token, so this guarantees the unbreakable duet: something you know (the password) and something you have in your possession (the token). So when you put these together you have successfully authenticated yourself. This is not a new concept and it has been used ancestrally, just remember the stories that verse about tattoos or moles, passwords and objects that would identify a king, a priest, or a knight.
Changing passwords and setting up rules to construct valid and secure passwords is also a good idea, the problem arises when these rules restrict dramatically the number of words the user can choose and effectively remember. When combined with a stringent requirement for changing them too frequently together with a strict no re-use policy, these policies can be counter productive as they make it almost impossible for the user to commit multiple and random letter/number combinations to memory.
I see this trend quite often, where most users have to identify themselves with a "THREE-FACTOR" authenticate method: The Token, the Password and the piece of paper where they wrote down the password and how to login.
It is a known fact that when tax rates increase about a certain threshold, revenues begin to drop as evasion becomes more common place. The fiercest regimes are usually the ones that fall quicker.
But this blog is not supposed to be about sociology or politics, but about technology and management and in reality the issue that prompts me to write this time is the obsession of some IT Security departments to implement every single possible "best practice" as security measures. Two-factor authentication is one and the most common version is the security token, so this guarantees the unbreakable duet: something you know (the password) and something you have in your possession (the token). So when you put these together you have successfully authenticated yourself. This is not a new concept and it has been used ancestrally, just remember the stories that verse about tattoos or moles, passwords and objects that would identify a king, a priest, or a knight.
Changing passwords and setting up rules to construct valid and secure passwords is also a good idea, the problem arises when these rules restrict dramatically the number of words the user can choose and effectively remember. When combined with a stringent requirement for changing them too frequently together with a strict no re-use policy, these policies can be counter productive as they make it almost impossible for the user to commit multiple and random letter/number combinations to memory.
I see this trend quite often, where most users have to identify themselves with a "THREE-FACTOR" authenticate method: The Token, the Password and the piece of paper where they wrote down the password and how to login.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
The $1,000 FreeVo
I get a lot of grief from my friends about this one. Unlike most of the people, I have a Mythbuntu box at home instead of a much less expensive DVR solution and what I struggle to explain is that this project started out as a different set of requirements. I wanted to have (purchase or build) a system that would have the following:
- Allow for 100's of GB of storage to be able to back-up all my photographic work and all the laptops at home (5 total!).
- Have a Linux O/S in order to be able to test some software solutions that would not run on any of the 5 Windows laptops.
- Full fledged development Web-Server with the LAMP stack installed, to be able to test sites on a local server.
- Central storage for all my music files.
- A networked, always-on system, accessible at any moment, from any place in the house.
- Being always-on, I wanted a SILENT, low-power consumption box, instead of a noisy, of-the-shelf server (I had a Cobalt before and it was like a hair dryer on all the time).
Then I figured:
- If this systems is going to be always on, and have all my music files on it, I want it to be hooked up to my Stereo.
- Now that it is hooked up to my stereo, Wouldn't it be nice to have my big-screen TV as its monitor?
- And, now that it is hooked up to my TV and Stereo, wouldn't it be nice to watch movies on it? Or even record TV shows?
So this is how I bumped into Mythbuntu. My decision of using a Linux O/S was pretty much a done-deal. This was a promise of having a full-fledged LAMP server with all the multi-media functionality I also wanted.
Hardware Spec:
- The application is not very CPU-demanding, so almost anything would do. I used a Motherboard and CPU I had around. A core-solo @ 2.66 MHz with 1 Gig of RAM and integrated Audio and VGA video.
- One 160 Gb PATA HDD that I had around for the system disk.
- Two 500 Gb SATA HDDs I purchased new for a RAID-1 array
- A Hauppauge PVR-150. I chose this one when I started this project BEFORE the digital TV transition. It comes with an MPEG dedicated compression chip, so this way the CPU would not be tied up doing this during recording. It also comes with a Phillips-MCE-Compatible remote and receiver. I will probably add a 1600 digital card soon, to be able to record off-the-air, straight digital signal.
- An Adesso 3000UB wireless USB keyboard. I wanted this to be able to browse the web, and use the actual Linux server without being tethered to the box. This model, despite some bad reviews, has withstood my abusive use pattern. It has a built-in trackball and a scroll wheel, so you can drive it kinda like a game console.
- A pair of Ethernet over powerline adaptors. I wanted to have this unit by my entertainment center (where there is no CAT-5 wiring), but still have decent connectivity, so I chose this over wireless.
- ANTEC box. I selected this one as I needed minimum wife friction. This box goes in the living room and the aluminum finish of this box is very discreet and looks like a Tuner. The box also has dual fans that can be throttled. I set them to the minimum speed and there is NO audible noise at all. The box has enough space for 3 HDDs and a DVD unit. This is a must if you are building a server. On the front of the box there is a VFD display. I had issues with this as the chipset has a IR receiver that is not functional but the O/S detects it in some cases. Because of this I disabled it by unplugging the USB interface that powers it.
Setting up the system:
When you install a UBUNTU system, things are just much more easier if you have everything in the box before you fire up the O/S. The plug-and-play functionality works well at initial install as long as your stuff is quite standard. Once the operating system is installed, dropping in an additional piece of HW can be more challenging (as it proved to be on my initial attempts).
1.- Under this configuration I would set everything in the box, except for the RAID-1 drives, then verify that it powers on without major errors.
2.- Download the Mythbuntu ISO. Mythbuntu is distribution that is a blend of Ubuntu and MythTV and comes with all the funky drivers, like the MCE Remote and the PVR150. I recommend you use a version based on one of the Server releases (8.04 was the latest LTS version at the time of this writing). Ubuntu has frequent updates for the desktop environment, but some of these updates can break your setup.
3.- Burn the ISO. You can use any software burner. In case you need one, CDBurnerXP is a good free alternative.
4.- Pop the CD in the optical drive of the newly built system. Follow the menues for installing UBUNTU on the system HDD and when prompted, select "Advanced Install". Here, add the VNC and MythTV services. On screen 12/15, enable the remote selecting "Windows Media Center (New)".
5.- Once UBUNTU has finished installing and rebooted, Launch the MythTV Setup. In my case I had to select General: US-Cable, Capture Cards: MPEG-2, setup the Database as "mythconverge" (is the default), and selected "Schedules Direct" (This is a Non-For-Profit Scheduling service that costs ~$20/year.) as my Video Sources. On "System Roles" select (add) "Ubuntu Desktop" so that all the stuff that comes with Ubuntu, such as Open Office, etc. gets installed.
6.- If you want to use Pandora on your box, you will have to install Flash. There is no Pandora applet for Mythbuntu at this moment. The Web browser on Mythbuntu is a Konqueror port. So you have to install Flash on the Konqueror browser. To do this, go to the menu (by pressing Ctrl-Esc) and select System>Add/Remove. Look for Konqueror. You might have to enable all software sources to do this. After you have installed Konqueror, open Firefox and close it. Now run Konqueror and install Flash (by navigating to Adobe's site).
7.- If you will be installing RAID devices, run in a console "sudo apt-get install mdam" and "sudo apt-get install raid". I followed the full How To published HERE.
- Partition your drives using fdisk. You can list your devices without risk using "sudo fdisk -l" If your first disk of the RAID array is your SECOND drive, you would use: "sudo fdisk /dev/sdb"
- Once you have created the raw partitions, these will be "ext3", the default Linux type, which is not available for RAID, so you will have to change their type to "Linux RAID Auto - fd" by using the "t" command in fdisk. Make sure you write your changes (command "w").
- Create the raid device using "sudo mknod /dev/md1 b 9 2"
- Create the RAID-1 array "sudo mdadm --create /dev/md1 --level=1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1"
- Verify that the array is created and synced: "sudo cat /proc/mdstat"
- Once it is synced, put a file system on the array: "sudo mke2fs -j /dev/md1
- Now mount the array on the /raid folder: "sudo mount /dev/md1 /raid
- Once everything is checked, create a line in /etc/fstab using: "sudo nano /etc/fstab"
- Add line "/dev/md1 /raid ext3 defaults 1 2" so that the array mounts with every boot.
8.- Once you have installed your RAID devices, now you can reconfigure your system to RIP your DVDs to the redundant array and also the music utility to save on this one. This way if your system drive fries, you will still have the files.
9.- Now you can configure other stuff like the MythWeather applet to display the maps and forecasts you want as well as the MythFlix applet to show your queues.
There is no easy way to configure your MythFlix queue now. You have to input some parameters into the MySQL database. To do this, it is best that you install PHPMYADMIN. You can find instructions on this HERE. Once you have this installed add the parameters following the instructions HERE.
10.- Create SAMBA accounts for everybody who needs to backup. This is something that I struggled with. In Linux, you need to have a local account and a Samba account in order to have a share. Download the SAMBA administrative application going to the system meny and selecting System>Add/Remove.
Other Add-ons:
1.- LAMP server:
One of the things that I wanted is to have a full LAMP stack to be able to run websites off this box for development purposes. One of the easiest how-tos is HERE.
2.- VMWare Server:
At this moment there was no other way to use NetFlix instant watch but on Windows machines. So I installed VMWare and XP on this box. I used the tutorial published HERE. I found out later that Sun's Virtual Box uses much less resources so I switched to that.
Issues:
On my way here I have found a number of good How-Tos.
1.- If you have problems with your IR Remote:
- Install LIRC on Hardy - Step by step diagnostics
- MCE on Hardy problems - an entry on the Ubuntu Forums, with many different issues
2.- If your PVR card is not recording:
- Hauppauge Wintv pvr 150 - A good case where many diagnostics procedures are described
3.- If you have Audio problems:
- Comprehensive Sound Problem Solutions Guide - Self explaining...
4.- Alright, you obsess about getting the VFD working:
- VFD on Antec fusion (look for the iMON section!)
- LCD Proc on MythTV.org
- HOW-TO Configure the VFD to work with MythTV on a Antec Fusion case - This even gets into using the Control Wheel on the box to drive the menues
Other improvements:
1.- RAID upgrade. I recently changed my 500 Gbs to 1.5 Tb drives. There is no way to "grow" a RAID array, so I had to create a new one and transfer the data using an external box.
2.- Backup system HDD. As you can imagine, after this server is up, it becomes critical to everything you do, backups, Websites, etc. So I decided to create a second drive that I could throw in, in case of a problem. I cloned my system HDD with G4L. The "receiving" drive was bigger, and G4L seemed to be confused by this, it was just taking to long to clone. By creating a partition on the second drive of exactly the same size as the source drive, the image was completed in 20 minutes. This larger drive now holds a partition exclusively for recordings, this way overrecording cannot ever cause problems with the O/S.
3.- Digital card. This is one that I want to do as I cannot get any content directly from the air right now.
4.- Version upgrade: Newer version now features MIRO and other plug-ins. I will try to figure out a safe way to perform this upgrade.
The $1,000 FreeVo, asides from humor, is an understatement as this is not a DVR. This is my home server with full LAMP capabilities, disk redundancy for backing-up my laptops and a central repository for my music files (several iTunes instances can sync onto these files through the network straight to an iPod, without taking up space on a laptop). On top of this, the box also acts like a DVR which justifies its place in the living-room. The fact that it is a regular computer, allows for running HULU and Pandora. Obviously, when you want to make a change, you usually have to open up that terminal window...
- Allow for 100's of GB of storage to be able to back-up all my photographic work and all the laptops at home (5 total!).
- Have a Linux O/S in order to be able to test some software solutions that would not run on any of the 5 Windows laptops.
- Full fledged development Web-Server with the LAMP stack installed, to be able to test sites on a local server.
- Central storage for all my music files.
- A networked, always-on system, accessible at any moment, from any place in the house.
- Being always-on, I wanted a SILENT, low-power consumption box, instead of a noisy, of-the-shelf server (I had a Cobalt before and it was like a hair dryer on all the time).
Then I figured:
- If this systems is going to be always on, and have all my music files on it, I want it to be hooked up to my Stereo.
- Now that it is hooked up to my stereo, Wouldn't it be nice to have my big-screen TV as its monitor?
- And, now that it is hooked up to my TV and Stereo, wouldn't it be nice to watch movies on it? Or even record TV shows?
So this is how I bumped into Mythbuntu. My decision of using a Linux O/S was pretty much a done-deal. This was a promise of having a full-fledged LAMP server with all the multi-media functionality I also wanted.
Hardware Spec:
- The application is not very CPU-demanding, so almost anything would do. I used a Motherboard and CPU I had around. A core-solo @ 2.66 MHz with 1 Gig of RAM and integrated Audio and VGA video.
- One 160 Gb PATA HDD that I had around for the system disk.
- Two 500 Gb SATA HDDs I purchased new for a RAID-1 array
- A Hauppauge PVR-150. I chose this one when I started this project BEFORE the digital TV transition. It comes with an MPEG dedicated compression chip, so this way the CPU would not be tied up doing this during recording. It also comes with a Phillips-MCE-Compatible remote and receiver. I will probably add a 1600 digital card soon, to be able to record off-the-air, straight digital signal.
- An Adesso 3000UB wireless USB keyboard. I wanted this to be able to browse the web, and use the actual Linux server without being tethered to the box. This model, despite some bad reviews, has withstood my abusive use pattern. It has a built-in trackball and a scroll wheel, so you can drive it kinda like a game console.
- A pair of Ethernet over powerline adaptors. I wanted to have this unit by my entertainment center (where there is no CAT-5 wiring), but still have decent connectivity, so I chose this over wireless.
- ANTEC box. I selected this one as I needed minimum wife friction. This box goes in the living room and the aluminum finish of this box is very discreet and looks like a Tuner. The box also has dual fans that can be throttled. I set them to the minimum speed and there is NO audible noise at all. The box has enough space for 3 HDDs and a DVD unit. This is a must if you are building a server. On the front of the box there is a VFD display. I had issues with this as the chipset has a IR receiver that is not functional but the O/S detects it in some cases. Because of this I disabled it by unplugging the USB interface that powers it.
Setting up the system:
When you install a UBUNTU system, things are just much more easier if you have everything in the box before you fire up the O/S. The plug-and-play functionality works well at initial install as long as your stuff is quite standard. Once the operating system is installed, dropping in an additional piece of HW can be more challenging (as it proved to be on my initial attempts).
1.- Under this configuration I would set everything in the box, except for the RAID-1 drives, then verify that it powers on without major errors.
2.- Download the Mythbuntu ISO. Mythbuntu is distribution that is a blend of Ubuntu and MythTV and comes with all the funky drivers, like the MCE Remote and the PVR150. I recommend you use a version based on one of the Server releases (8.04 was the latest LTS version at the time of this writing). Ubuntu has frequent updates for the desktop environment, but some of these updates can break your setup.
3.- Burn the ISO. You can use any software burner. In case you need one, CDBurnerXP is a good free alternative.
4.- Pop the CD in the optical drive of the newly built system. Follow the menues for installing UBUNTU on the system HDD and when prompted, select "Advanced Install". Here, add the VNC and MythTV services. On screen 12/15, enable the remote selecting "Windows Media Center (New)".
5.- Once UBUNTU has finished installing and rebooted, Launch the MythTV Setup. In my case I had to select General: US-Cable, Capture Cards: MPEG-2, setup the Database as "mythconverge" (is the default), and selected "Schedules Direct" (This is a Non-For-Profit Scheduling service that costs ~$20/year.) as my Video Sources. On "System Roles" select (add) "Ubuntu Desktop" so that all the stuff that comes with Ubuntu, such as Open Office, etc. gets installed.
6.- If you want to use Pandora on your box, you will have to install Flash. There is no Pandora applet for Mythbuntu at this moment. The Web browser on Mythbuntu is a Konqueror port. So you have to install Flash on the Konqueror browser. To do this, go to the menu (by pressing Ctrl-Esc) and select System>Add/Remove. Look for Konqueror. You might have to enable all software sources to do this. After you have installed Konqueror, open Firefox and close it. Now run Konqueror and install Flash (by navigating to Adobe's site).
7.- If you will be installing RAID devices, run in a console "sudo apt-get install mdam" and "sudo apt-get install raid". I followed the full How To published HERE.
- Partition your drives using fdisk. You can list your devices without risk using "sudo fdisk -l" If your first disk of the RAID array is your SECOND drive, you would use: "sudo fdisk /dev/sdb"
- Once you have created the raw partitions, these will be "ext3", the default Linux type, which is not available for RAID, so you will have to change their type to "Linux RAID Auto - fd" by using the "t" command in fdisk. Make sure you write your changes (command "w").
- Create the raid device using "sudo mknod /dev/md1 b 9 2"
- Create the RAID-1 array "sudo mdadm --create /dev/md1 --level=1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1"
- Verify that the array is created and synced: "sudo cat /proc/mdstat"
- Once it is synced, put a file system on the array: "sudo mke2fs -j /dev/md1
- Now mount the array on the /raid folder: "sudo mount /dev/md1 /raid
- Once everything is checked, create a line in /etc/fstab using: "sudo nano /etc/fstab"
- Add line "/dev/md1 /raid ext3 defaults 1 2" so that the array mounts with every boot.
8.- Once you have installed your RAID devices, now you can reconfigure your system to RIP your DVDs to the redundant array and also the music utility to save on this one. This way if your system drive fries, you will still have the files.
9.- Now you can configure other stuff like the MythWeather applet to display the maps and forecasts you want as well as the MythFlix applet to show your queues.
There is no easy way to configure your MythFlix queue now. You have to input some parameters into the MySQL database. To do this, it is best that you install PHPMYADMIN. You can find instructions on this HERE. Once you have this installed add the parameters following the instructions HERE.
10.- Create SAMBA accounts for everybody who needs to backup. This is something that I struggled with. In Linux, you need to have a local account and a Samba account in order to have a share. Download the SAMBA administrative application going to the system meny and selecting System>Add/Remove.
Other Add-ons:
1.- LAMP server:
One of the things that I wanted is to have a full LAMP stack to be able to run websites off this box for development purposes. One of the easiest how-tos is HERE.
2.- VMWare Server:
At this moment there was no other way to use NetFlix instant watch but on Windows machines. So I installed VMWare and XP on this box. I used the tutorial published HERE. I found out later that Sun's Virtual Box uses much less resources so I switched to that.
Issues:
On my way here I have found a number of good How-Tos.
1.- If you have problems with your IR Remote:
- Install LIRC on Hardy - Step by step diagnostics
- MCE on Hardy problems - an entry on the Ubuntu Forums, with many different issues
2.- If your PVR card is not recording:
- Hauppauge Wintv pvr 150 - A good case where many diagnostics procedures are described
3.- If you have Audio problems:
- Comprehensive Sound Problem Solutions Guide - Self explaining...
4.- Alright, you obsess about getting the VFD working:
- VFD on Antec fusion (look for the iMON section!)
- LCD Proc on MythTV.org
- HOW-TO Configure the VFD to work with MythTV on a Antec Fusion case - This even gets into using the Control Wheel on the box to drive the menues
Other improvements:
1.- RAID upgrade. I recently changed my 500 Gbs to 1.5 Tb drives. There is no way to "grow" a RAID array, so I had to create a new one and transfer the data using an external box.
2.- Backup system HDD. As you can imagine, after this server is up, it becomes critical to everything you do, backups, Websites, etc. So I decided to create a second drive that I could throw in, in case of a problem. I cloned my system HDD with G4L. The "receiving" drive was bigger, and G4L seemed to be confused by this, it was just taking to long to clone. By creating a partition on the second drive of exactly the same size as the source drive, the image was completed in 20 minutes. This larger drive now holds a partition exclusively for recordings, this way overrecording cannot ever cause problems with the O/S.
3.- Digital card. This is one that I want to do as I cannot get any content directly from the air right now.
4.- Version upgrade: Newer version now features MIRO and other plug-ins. I will try to figure out a safe way to perform this upgrade.
The $1,000 FreeVo, asides from humor, is an understatement as this is not a DVR. This is my home server with full LAMP capabilities, disk redundancy for backing-up my laptops and a central repository for my music files (several iTunes instances can sync onto these files through the network straight to an iPod, without taking up space on a laptop). On top of this, the box also acts like a DVR which justifies its place in the living-room. The fact that it is a regular computer, allows for running HULU and Pandora. Obviously, when you want to make a change, you usually have to open up that terminal window...
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Morning Walk
Every day looks pretty much the same. In fact, it can get sickening sometimes.
You leave the home, lock the door and the expected entourage of characters start to show-up.
The lady in the pink shirt walking the pomeranian, the asian guy that runs shirtless with a little dog that does not match his attitude, the woman in the hat.
After a while you just know them all, it gets boring and you just stop looking. So you come up with passtimes, you make up games.
This morning I spotted a gentleman on the other side of the street. I decided to get into an imaginary race. I was doing good under my opinion, my steps were long and cadence was actually faster than his. Still could not pass him. Stepped it up, lengthened my stride, still having a hard time.
He seemed to be leisurly strolling, and I still couldn't pass him!
Next time I decide to get into a race, I will pick the inner side of the curve...
You leave the home, lock the door and the expected entourage of characters start to show-up.
The lady in the pink shirt walking the pomeranian, the asian guy that runs shirtless with a little dog that does not match his attitude, the woman in the hat.
After a while you just know them all, it gets boring and you just stop looking. So you come up with passtimes, you make up games.
This morning I spotted a gentleman on the other side of the street. I decided to get into an imaginary race. I was doing good under my opinion, my steps were long and cadence was actually faster than his. Still could not pass him. Stepped it up, lengthened my stride, still having a hard time.
He seemed to be leisurly strolling, and I still couldn't pass him!
Next time I decide to get into a race, I will pick the inner side of the curve...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
