Sometimes China gets it. And sometimes they don't.

Stupid obvious statement: There are lots of very smart people in the Chinese government.
Not so stupid question: Why do all those smart people not realize that people prefer genuine over fake?

The 2008 Olympic opening ceremony was unfortunate. Somewhat understandable - because they didn't want something to go horribly wrong and not have anything at all - but unfortunate in that they seem to miss the fact that people would rather have something real rather than perfect (as if they can be completely perfect). The world would have understood if a huge rain storm (or smog) had prevented any view at all of the footsteps to the birdsnest. But as I said, it is somewhat understandable because it is, most of all, a work of entertainment.

Last summer there was melamine contamination in pet food. The Chinese government appears to have denied it before they even investigated the claim. First of all, why does the Chinese government need to deny anything? The pet food is made by a company, not the government. Or at least, that is what we are led to believe.

Unbelievable that they would even consider doing though, was a press release of how a Chinese space mission was going - before it even launched! On 26 Sept 2008, the story hit the wires:

The article described the Shenzhou VII space craft orbiting the Earth and outlined a conversation between the astronauts.

[...]

The article later described the reaction to a successful outcome of the mission. "Ten minutes later, the ship disappears below the horizon. Warm clapping and excited cheering breaks the night sky, echoing across the silent Pacific Ocean."

It is as if the government is afraid that if everything isn't picture perfect, the world will fall apart. The crazy part is that every knows that it isn't perfect, so the only ones that the government is fooling is themselves.

It would be worth it for them to adopt a picture of the truth, rather than a picture of perfection.

HDTV Antenna

Some things are not worth buying, while others are. An antenna for an HDTV may fall into that category. Depending on which stations you are trying to pick up (and how far away those are), you may or may not need one.

The ever present /. discussion on the topic.

Random quote and links of interest that I've found:

http://www.hdtvantennalabs.com/tv-antenna-type.php

Terk HDTVa Indoor Amplified High-Definition Antenna for Off-Air HDTV Reception has decent, but not the best reviews. the below is supposedly better:

Regarding Philips High Performance Amplified Indoor Uhf/Vhf/Fm/HDTV Antenna:
An improvement of the PHD TV3, July 7, 2007
By Diego Banducci (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)
At $500 per year for basic cable, the financial argument for buying an antenna is compelling if you're not a cable junkie. So the issue is which one to buy.

We live in a reception hollow about 15 miles from most of the local station antennas. This antenna improved reception for all of the stations in the area when compared with our old PHD TV3, especially major network affiliates, but was weak on independent stations. (Prior to that, we had a Terk, which was the worst of the bunch).

Philips seems to be oblivious to the fact that a lot of people who buy indoor antennas place them in the attic or some other enclosed space. The instructions for this antenna tell you to set the rabbit ears straight vertical for channels 2 - 6, and horizontal for VHF channels above 6. The latter is difficult, if not impossible, in an enclosed space.

So we just set them straight up, which worked fine for all VHF channels except 7, a marked improvement over the PHD TV3.

UHF reception, on the other hand, is somewhat worse. But we don't watch much UHF.

The gain control is useless. On every other antenna I've tried, the gain control has improved reception, but not this one.

I found the other reviews on this page (especially Y. Chang's) very helpful, and recommend reading them.

Update: Several years ago I read an amazon review that described the Winegard SS-3000 as being far and away the best indoor antenna. I couldn't remember the name, but recently tracked it down and bought one. It really is the Gold Standard of indoor TV antennas. Unlike most others, it is compact, has no rabbit ears, and incorporates modern technology in its design. I was able to buy one from Affordable HDTV in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA. It's more expensive than the others (costs about 100 bucks), but is significantly better. An identical product is sold by Terk as the TERK HDTVLP Indoor / Outdoor TV and HDTV Antenna: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0009WX4KM/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk

Winegard also sells an outdoor model SS-2000 "Squareshooter" that looks to me like it could easily be mounted indoors. It too has received excellent reviews, although I have not tried it. It sells for about the same price as the SS-3000. It is also sold by Terk as TERK HD-TVS Slim Profile Outdoor HDtv Antenna.

SSL

SSL is obviously worth it, for a number of reasons: guarantees you are talking to whom you think you are, and you can do so securely.

Where to get a certificate?

• CAcert (not approved by Mozilla yet)
• StartSSL
• StartCom
• RapidSSL
• InstantSSL
  

Data availability and backup

It is crazy how many people seem to think that trusting Google with ALL your data is "good enough," and that you don't need any backups. What happens when you need access to a piece of your data at the most inopportune time (when Google or the Internet [are they becoming one in the same? :~] is down)?

House Value and searching

Now that the MLS monopoly is supposedly finally broken, check out ZipRealty
and Zillow.

Securing financial data

Home users have a few choices for good security for their financial data (on the assumption that their computer or data will eventually fall into the hands of a thief). One solution is to do the same types of things suggested by this thread in /., even if it is written for something else. Then there is Linux encrypted filesystems. Someday I'll have some time to get that set up.

Printers and ink

Inkjets are a pain. You want handy color printing sometimes, but most of the time you only need black and white. Color laser printers are still relatively expensive (but apparently dropping quickly in price), but so is the ink for an inkjet - and that ignores the relatively short time period that the printer works before the heads get clogged up, and how long ink lasts. Several stories on /. about stuff related to this. Color picture prints at local stores has dropped to the point that inkjets may not be worth-it any more. Several stories on /.

myththemes

Oh, there are so many choices. Threads of choices, in fact.

Mail over the interwebs

Coldtobi has a list of the free web-accessible email clients. Horde seems like a good choice, in which case, some performance hints might come in handy.

Myth dev

If I want to start submitting feature patches to myth, I'll need to be a little more up on stuff.

cuymedia has the C++ program classes in handy web format.

My first project might involve creating a new/second dontrec flag to fake out the scheduler. Are rec_override and rectype_dontrec related?

Educational PC

My daughter has a laptop. It's a nice laptop, well, except for the missing keys that she pealed off and either broke or lost when she was 2-3 years old. And except that the hard drive is so small, only a few games will fit on it. Or that it has 512 MB of RAM, takes forever to boot, and is too slow to browse myepets. She needs something with more HP.

Wine and Cadega with Edubuntu maybe?

Interesting commentary on Sugar, the interface for OLPC.

Lists and stuff (movies and tech and ...etc.)

Someday Blockbuster and Netflix's will be dead. The Internet will be fast enough that people won't want to pay the postage. The question is who will be the winner, and the timing of that.

• Hulu

The lists of good movies to see is endless:

• Metacritic (which also has a music list)
  
• IMDB
• netflix and Blockbuster have their own lists as well

As are the the lists of "useful websites", "useful plugins", etc:

• Telegraph.co.uk most useful websites
  
• Top youtube videos
• Free and essential apps
• Mix of apps and websites

How about I start my own "randomly useful" list?

• Yelp to search for restaurants, and other businesses
• blackviper for windows tuning (Windows Powertoys may help as well)
  

Video conferencing on the cheap

Finding a computer cam for video conferencing with decent resolution and frame rate seems to be pretty hit-or-miss. Even the Logitech Quickcam Fusion only does 640x480. Newegg, as usual, is a good place to go for a few.

How about just voice? David Rowe has some neat stuff. And of course, /.

BTW, prefer ones that adhere to the USB video device class specification(s). There are a few lists:

• Linux list
• Wikipedia list

Then there is packet priority (aka QoS) to deal with. /. to the rescue.

VHS conversion

VHS conversion is something that lots of people want to do. Many have already done it, perhaps with not ideal results, due to interlacing artifacts and/or noise. There are a few forums like AVS and videohelp, that have people that have discussed and done this before. Noise reduction and comb filter(s)?

LCD's without enough colors

Apple is being sued, again, over color space (from /., as usual).

This is absolutely true. I'd estimate that the vast majority of LCD panels on the market are 6-bit screens. Whether you are buying Benq, LG, Dell, Viewsonic, it doesn't matter. Most of them are 6 bit.

They are cheaper, and they have faster response times.

8-bit LCD panels are almost a niche specialty 'pro product' in today's market, and unless you went out of your way to buy an 8 bit screen odds are you took home a 6-bit TN panel, advertised as showing "16.2 million colours" without even knowing it.

Its not just Apple. Although they seem to have gone beyond marketing deceptiveness to outright lies and deserve to be taken to task about it.

But don't for a minute think all those free Dell monitors bundled with low end PCs are anything better. Hell, even the ones you can pay to upgrade to aren't often anything better than 6-bit.

Those advertised as 16.7 million colors tend to be 8 bit.

Remotes

My MCE remote that came with my PVR-USB2 doesn't seem to be programmable (to have the volume control the television). So I bought the ultra cool M2010 remote off ebay, and ordered the receiver from Dell, per the AVS forum thread (it contains a discrete power supply and two chips: CYWUSB6934-48LFXC [wireless USB tx (and rx?)] and the CY7C63743-QXC [enCoRe USB something or other].

Be sure to keep in mind Bruce Perens instructions.

# cat /proc/bus/input/devices

and

# cat /proc/bus/usb/devices

If I have trouble:

• There is a Linux MCE wiki that I've never seen before, which makes mention of the
• Fiire-chief and event codes, among other things. LMCE also has a thread on their mailing list, as well and on their forums.
• KnoppMyth has a mention of something similar.
• There is a thread at Ubuntu forums as well. And another.
• And a Ubuntu bug as well
• try a google search
• or linux usb kernal search or patch, continued here. More patch here.
  
• This may not be easy to resolve
• Collect more data. Or hack.
  
• As always, it's been discussed on /., including a post by Bruce hisself.

Or maybe I should just buy the Logitech Harmony remote that everyone raves about. Nawww... that would be cheating.

One thing I noticed is that the remote is recognized as a keyboard rather than a remote. A thread on the linuxmce forum mentions getting Linux to recognize it as a remote by keying on its USB UUID, which allowed someone to use UIRT by way of adding a line in /etc/something/rules.d. Seems like part of the problem might be some keycodes are > 255? Xmodmap is the default way of supporting stuff via the HID driver that is enabled by default. A hack into LIRC might provide access to more keys. The guy that figured out the rules.d aspect is named Adam Pierce. LIRC appears to be the much preferred way because it works across lots of different applications.

I wonder about the other direction. The remote has an LCD screen. Interesting - there is a USB LCD display that you can buy which we might be able to base some of this on. It uses the standard libusb, with a small adder: usblcd. linuxusblcd and lcdproc also exist. There is even Mythlcdserver, which uses lcdproc. Might use a usb bus tracker within windows to see it (the driver) in operation.

Different thread on the same topic: I also have a desire to be able to remotely control a frontend from a remote computer (that is obviously not the front end). Especially mythmusic (or whatever might replace it). So volume control, next song and previous song are the most important. Being able to retrieve the playlist would be a big bonus, although I'd probably be happy with Previous song/artist + current song/artist (and hopefully + next song/artist). There are some people that appear to have done something similar: Myth Web Virtual Remote, iphone remote control, mythetomer, mythRemote, and Remote Remote (for Apple). The mythtv telnet socket wiki page has links to some of these as well. Or maybe I'll just settle for vnc. tkmythremote is new, as is mymote (which is much more than just a simple remote - perhaps what I want for the LCD display??).

Robots for pets?

Some day, a goodly percentage of the population will have robots. Maybe not stand-up robots that carry on a conversation (at least for a good long while), but utility robots that are happy to take orders and do things for you. Toy robots might also. I wonder if many people might buy robots rather than pets... because they tend to be cheaper in the long run.

The Pleo appears to be the most advanced one that is widely produced as of 2007.

HDMI and IEEE1394 devices

There are encoders and decoders. Companies such as Silicon Image, Vativ, TI, and Analog Devices make them. Who else? One would of these companies be a good investment with blu-ray finally chosen as high def format and HDTV's quickly dropping in price?

I'm also looking for a good Firewire device to connect to the output of my cable box. Choices seem to include:

T.V.'s:

• Hitachi XWX (not SWX): 51XWX20B, 57XWX20B, 65XWX20B + 65S700, 57S700, 51S700, 65T750, 57T750
  
• JVC 94 Monitor: AV-56WP94, AV-65WP94
  
• Mitsubishi WS-485111, WS-55511, and WS-65511 + WS-48613, WS-55613, WS-65613
• Panasonic PT-47WD63, PT-53TWD63, PT-56TWD63
• SONY (i.link) KDP-51WS550, KDP-57WS550, KDP-65WS550
  
• RCA/Thomson: WD52W140, HD61W140, Scenium: HD52W151, HD56W151, HD61W151, HD52W41, WD56W41
• Toshiba (DTVLink = 1394): 51H93, 57H93, 65H93
  
• Zenith/LG: *maybe* DU-50PZ60 or MU-50PZ90V

D-VHS digital VCR's (ideally one with D-Theater content protection). Aka DVS?

• Panasonic PV-HD1000
• JVC HM-DSR100, HM-DH5U, DT100U, HM-DH40000, HM-DH30000U (aka 30k)
  
• Sony DHR1000, DSR2000
• Mitsubishi HS-HD2000U DVHS
• Marantz MV8300
  

Interesting published article: http://sciencelinks.jp/j-east/article/200012/000020001200A0297132.php

Users manuals:
http://www.asm-form.com/Form.html

Beware of Hitachi and RCA - they may have "braindead 1394" - aka "digital A/V" OR simply "digital interface":

• Hitachi's VTDX815A
• RCA: VR911HF

Hitachi and Thomson Consumer Electronics, the U.S. subsidiary of France's money-losing Thomson Multimedia that owns the RCA and GE brands, were the first to detail their D-VHS time-shift offerings. Hitachi showed a prototype $599 D-VHS deck with an IEEE-1394 connection to its IRD at the Winter Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in January, 1997. Thomson chose the Satellite Broadcasting & Communications Association (SBCA) show in March to outline its plans for the DSS-3 product line, which includes an as-yet-unpriced D-VHS deck. Much to the dismay of FireWire purists, both decks use brain-dead 1394. TWICE (This Week in Consumer Electronics) quoted Randy Staggs, Thomson VCR product management manager as saying: "The simplified digital A/V bus doesn't have the simultaneous two-way communication of the full IEEE-1394 spec, which allows us to use a less-expensive microprocessor." The same article attributes to Hitachi TV product manager Jim Abrahamsen the somewhat misleading observation that "the interface is 'a simplified digital A/V bus,' meaning that while the IEEE-1394 connection is used, only four pins out of the six specified in the standard are used to carry bitstream data." It's true that four conductors carry the IEEE-1394 data; the two missing conductors in the four-pin IEEE-1394.1 consumer connector carry power. But the IEEE-1394.1 connectors used by today's DV and DVCAM camcorders and decks implement the full IEEE-1394 protocol, not some proprietary "simplified digital A/V bus."


Other 1394 devices (might not be 5C compliant):

• Pioneer 520H-S DVD/HD recorder
• Panasonic DMR-HS2

Hard drive cooling

With almost no airflow on them at the moment, my top HD runs at 50C and the one immedately below it runs at 49C. Both are 10 to 15C hotter than I'd like (per Google's research paper on HD temperatures - ideal is < 40C). Thinking about mounting a large diameter quiet fan next to the power supply to blow directly on them. Here's some options:

• http://www.vantecusa.com/product-cooling.html
• Nexus Frizzbee Inaudible HDD Cooler
• http://www.scythe-usa.com/support/support_temp/002/fan_spec.html
  

PBX

I wonder if I should implement a PBX on my Linux server. Don't know why, except that it'd be a cool replacement to an answering machine! Asterisk is one obvious answer. /.
There is a second discussion as well.

Hard drives

It appears to be pretty well established that the fewer number of platters, the lower the power and noise (with obviously significant variation between drives families and vendors). But since we're speaking in generalities, Western Digital's SE16 series appears to have a very good trade-off between noise, power, and throughput/access time. Possibly an even better trade-off than their new GP (green power) series make, where performance appears to suffer. The Spinpoint F1 uses just a bit more power, but has considerably better performance.

WD2500KS has 2x125 GB platters
WD2500AAKS has 2x160 GB platters - 3 heads $50 on ebay. A bit more retail

WD3200AAKS has 2x160 GB platters

WD4000KS has 4x125 GB platters
WD4000AAKS has 3x166 GB platters - 5 heads

WD5000KS has 4x125 GB platters
WD5000YS has 4x125 GB platters
WD5000AAKS has 3x166 GB platters - 6 heads $100

WD7500AAKS has 4x188 GB platters - 8 heads $150

Speaking of WD, it has different seek modes which further tradeoff access time vs. noise (and probably to a lessor degree, power): AAM, which may not work on ASUS boards due to conflicts with A.I. Quiet (fan control stuff?)?! Normally it can be adjusted with HFT (Hitachi Feature Tool), Abacus HDD Acoustic Manager (hddacman), or HDDScan. Maybe just need to do the adjustment on a different motherboard.

Prices are December 2007. Wonder how long it will take 1 TB drives to be $100!

Careers, planning, jobs, future, etc

More stuff here later. Didn't realize that google had a job search site now!

Nothing wrong with having long terms plans (for career or for life in general).... just as long as it isn't written in stone.

Un-interruptable power

Commerical UPS's are expensive and don't seem to last very long. Maybe a homegrown one would be worth it?

Snail mail spam

Isn't the spam you receive at home in your snail mail box annoying? And even more annoying when it is something misleading (like a service warranty for your car, coming from a company with what appears to be no name - the result being that the only name you see on the letter is the name of your car). And most annoying, stock tip letters claiming to not be attempting to influence you to buying a stock, yet they most obviously are. It would be worth coming up with a response to that... even if it were to get the SEC involved.

It is a completely different topic, but this /. postingreminded me of the same thing:

Appending "Of course, correlation doesn't prove causality." to the end of an article strongly implying causality in every sense, doesn't absolve the reporter from the false conclusions he/she implies throughout the rest of the article.

That the correlation was run at ALL implies that someone was 'looking for something' - suspect 1. The layer upon layer of dependent statistics leading to a very authoritative-sounding "the likelihood that this is a concidence is 7%" makes it sound very scientific and accurate - suspect 2

Sorry, this is FUD passed off as news supported by phony statistics.

Myth software specific stuff

I'm starting to get too get too much stuff collected up on my PVR posting, so I figured splitting out stuff that was specific to Myth software would be worth it.

File/show renaming has pluses and minuses.

New mythv-vid branch has an opengl renderer that appears to be well received, although Make sure the XComposite extension is disabled for the best performance. While neat, XComposite will lower rendering speed quite a bit when using OpenGL. VAAPI (video-decode acceleration API) is also a factor.

If it isn't already enabled (mine was), call cable company and ask for them to send the app_if enable command down ("have the headend engineer enable the "App IF Port" using the DAC") to cable box to enable serial port (or HSI port) on cable box. There seems to be surprisingly little info on setting the external channel change command, either for serial or IR blaster. Did I miss something at install?!

For IR, Google search on 0_82_KEY_POWER, irsend, send_power_new, ch_chan.sh. Searching irsend and external channel change, I found a bit hint on the ubuntu forums: irsend DirecTV $S [NUM] or:

Make a file /usr/local/bin/change_chan.sh

#!/bin/sh
REMOTE_NAME=TWC_UR4-P360 # change this obviously
for digit in $(echo $1 | sed -e 's/./& /g'); do
irsend --device=/dev/lircd1 SEND_ONCE $REMOTE_NAME $digit
sleep 0.4 # note, you may have to tweak the interdigit delay up a bit
done
irsend --device=/dev/lircd1 SEND_ONCE $REMOTE_NAME SELECT

That same search turns up other hits that I haven't investigated yet (but which probably contain my answer). Finally found a more extensive discussions of the channel change script on the ubuntu forum, which has a posted copy of channelchange.pl (still current as of Jan 2008)

For serial, even less stuff. Found this posting from someone named Karl Kamysek which mentions mythtv/contrib/channel_changers/dct-channel which:

# ./channel -v 10
Attempting to initialize DCT
No response to packet
No response to init_1; trying to continue
No response to packet
No response to initialize_2

That was also mentioned on the mythtv-users list which seems to mention that being located here: /usr/share/doc/mythtv-0.18.1/contrib. Looks like searches for dct-channel turn up quite a bit, including a thread from 2005. Found a 2007 link to dct-channel.tgz. Ahhhh - finally found MythTV_External_Channel_Changer on the Ubuntu wiki.

Myth also appears to have power scripting if you know where to look... but scripts may need some touching up to know how/when to stop if they are prematurely stopped by the user.

Various tips on myhdbox, knoppmyth, and gentoo-wiki.

Man, I'm surprised to find that the complaints about MythMusic are mostly correct. It really seems like an unfinished product. I'm sure it can be done via SQL, but I can't find any way to change anything after the CD is imported - that includes deleting a song or album!

For rebuilding a database: myth.rebuilddatebase.pl scipt will import the old recordings. Speaking of which, someone else has posted:

automysqlbackup bash script is awesome! I use in my cron.daily. It backups mythconverg daily and weekly, compresses them, rotates them, erases older ones etc etc. check it out: http://sourceforge.net/projects/automysqlbackup/

this is the command I run in my cron.daily folder

Lastly, the ever important debug:

mythfrontend -v important (or -v help to list more options)

Now for SVN / myth-dev hints/stuff:

Builds of 0.21 (and I assume 0.20) require a two step process due to a circular library reference.
Need to read: http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.4/svn-book.html#svn.tour.history.snapshots

Maybe I'll just stick with building my own Mythbuntu rather than the whole svn:

• "How do I test my own patch"

-or-

• "Patching and recompling"
  

Beware when upgrading!

Quality products

Whenever I go to buy something, I always have a debate with myself: is it worth it to buy a high quality (but VERY expensive) version of the product, or buy the lower quality (and sometimes dirt cheap) version? It's a complex question made even harder by the fact that some mid-grade brands try to pass themselves off as high-grade (Bose comes to mind, but are they even mid-grade?). Not that there is anything wrong with mid-grade (I buy plenty of mid-grade stuff... looking for the "best" at a price range I'm willing to swallow).

It involves balancing the overall price of the product, how long it will likely last, how frequently it will get used, and how good a job it will do.

A perfect example is cordless drills. I finally decided to go with a cheap one made in China because in order to get a cordless drill that is really worth having, you have to pony up quite a bit of money. Instead, I got the cheap one for the small projects and will get out my corded drill for the major ones.

Here's a list of some of the higher-end brands for things:

• Vacuum cleaners: Kirby and Electrolux. People rave about Dyson as well.
• Kensington trackballs
  

This could also expand into a list of things to beware of.

Fun stuff

Origami has always interested me. I think somewhere I have bookmarks for some sites, and I'm sure there are more - although perhaps not this serious.

Displaying data

There is so many ways to display data... just look at digg's cool tools for watching their stories. IBM has a tool for generalized data sets, it appears.

Savings: absolutely worth it!

Neat blog post about energy savings.
And for the machine I'm about to build: how about a high efficiency power supply? /.
Also need to investigate power savings in the form of ACPI for Linux.


"Deal sites":

• digg discussion
  
• moneysavingexpert (mostly UK stuff?)
  
• xpBargain seems ok, but almost lists too much stuff. Same with techbargins
• dealnews has decent categories
  
• I like Spoofee's listings better, although maybe it lists too little. Need a happy medium
• and of course, the kings, Slick Deals and Fat wallet
  

General shopping sites I've found good deals at:

• Typical: newegg, Amazon.com, tigerdirect
  
• Smaller: mwave.com, buy.com, ecost.com (although beware of shipping delays that cause you to be ineligible for mail-in rebates)

And then we have savings as in money savings:

• http://www.umbrellabank.com/per_accounts/per_cds.php
• http://www.choicebankaz.com/interest-rates.asp
• http://www.indymacbank.com/Individuals/Banking/page.asp?pSection=msnMoneyCusCD&ck=1&imb=INF:MSm:CD
• http://bankdeals.blogspot.com/
• http://www.westsoundbank.com/onlinebanking.html
• https://savings.eloan.com/savingsrates?context=deposits&sid=FnA1FDmoRD8Te0Rkdmok2BZ1RuI&user=&mcode=
• https://bank.countrywide.com/CWBRates.aspx
• http://cdrates.bankaholic.com/

but be sure to check out the banks before you send them your money!
Speaking of saving money... Beware the planners.

Customer support

Digg has a link worth keeping to a useful site on how to actually get hold of someone for customer service.

The Internets

Speed testing:

• Miranda arl speed test
• same as web100 NDT at Stanford which lists several other speed test sites
• A huge list is here.
• Simple, but effective: Toast.net
  
• Speakeasy is just rebranded Speedtest
• Note that it might be affected by window size - maybe try tuning window scaling (RFC 1323).
  

Cable modem info... worth knowing before calling the cable company about poor bandwidth:

• DocsDiag - cable modem diagnostics - can grab current config (like speed ratings)
  

Domain hosting, in somewhat of a priority order:

• Dotster
• namecheap (reseller for ENOM, not a registrar?) Find discount code. Excellent reviews.
  
• GoDaddy supposedly has excellent customer service, at least compared to:
• 1and1 (fast cheap and reliable, but lots of reports of poor customer service)
• yahoo

Unknown:

• 777
• dynadot.com
• MyDomain.com / domain.com - use discount/coupon code "bargaincat.com"

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=508849&page=3
Also, .info domains are dirt cheap.

My current (RCA /Thomson DCM310) cable modem responds like all good modems should, to http://192.168.100.1/ Example while connected:

Forward Path:	Return Path:
Signal Acquired at 615.000 MHz	Connection: Acquired
SNR: 34.0 dB	Frequency: 36.0 MHz
Received Signal Strength: -13.4 dBmV	Power Level: 50.5 dBmV
Micro-Reflections: 37 dBc	Channel ID: 3
Modulation: 256 QAM	Modulation: 16 QAM

Update: What if I need to get around a firewall that my cable company puts up? Wired has an article that is worth reading on that topic.

HDTV tuners

I think it would be worth having a separate post for the various HD-related items I'm researching to replace (or go in parallel with) my Comcast (now Time Warner) DCT2524/1612 cable box (reportedly has the same channel control signals as the DCT700). DCT-3416 (among others like SA 3250 HD (Version 2.1), SA8000HD (dual tuners?), DCT-5100 HD-Cable, etc) supposedly have working Firewire. Like always, AVS forum probably has others listed, and converter boxes. HDTVoice seems quite active as well. Might as well get one with digital (HDMI, display port, or DVI) output as well - plus dual tuners. What are the chances? Slim probably, the ones with dual tuners probably won't output dual to firewire or whatever.

Don't forget the small issue of cable card and other issues. Switched digital video is coming also. Supposedly "tuning resolvers" (or "tuning adapter") are on the way to help legacy and TIVO deal with that. Motorola has a MTR700 and Cisco/Scientific Atlanta STA1520.

This first section will be about HD tuners:

• HDHomeRun appears to be an appealing option complete with MythTV support and QAM receiver... (i.e. dual?) typically $160 or $170.
  
• The pcHD HD-5000 is also a good combo analog/digital HDTV receiver - and as a bonus, it doesn't support the broadcast flag. There are multiple people reporting poor receiver sensitivity though on this and the previous HD-3000.
• DViCO Fusion HDTV5 USB (or PCI) has QAM and is inexpensive, well supported, and appears to work well. Reception/tuning might be better
  
• Avermedia A180 / ATI HDTV Wonder / K-world 110 (or 115). Ebay for around $20.
  

The problem with the above, after finding a list of unencrypted digital channels, is that we'll be missing out on a BUNCH of channels if we don't go with a cable box, so it doesn't make sense to pay very many dollars for any of the above.

Semi-related: High def blog.


Until I get HD though, perhaps I want to stick with one of the Hauppauge PVR-x50 cards:

• PVR-150 (super cheap and well supported)
• PVR-500 (acts like two PVR-150's)
• PVR-350 (has video out)
• WinTV-PVR-USB2 (external tuner and conversion means less noise and slightly better pic quality). Drivers here.
• I think I like the Plextor Convert X PX-TV402 since it has built in MPEG-4 encoding support

Compare the 150 and 350: here and here.

Update: I ended up getting the USB2 for now. Cheap and easy and works. Still need an additional cable tuner though, so that we can watch and record at the same time - and if I'm going to buy a tuner, it might as well have firewire output? Even better, I wonder if there are any dual-tuner cable boxes. AVSforum has a list of the various moto boxes. Here is another list. If I want to avoid firewire outputs, units to investigate include DCT2000 (designed to work with and external Motorola HDD-200 OR HDD-201 decoder), maybe DCT2244, DCT2524, DCP501, some 5200's, and some 6200 HD's. Supposedly the DCT2xxx series contain a 68k-based microcontroller. Time warner lists the manuals for the following DCT's: 2000, 2500, 5100, 6400, 6200, and 6208.

Super thread on DTCP/5C Firewire, and the CCI codes on the famous AVS forum.

Copyright violation more serious than crimes against people?

Perhaps this explains why music companies insist on suing their own customers. Or why DVD's have stupid region coding schemes which prevents my Swedish speaking 5 year old daughter from playing the Swedish version of Pippi Longstockings in our DVD player purchased in Texas.

In short, they are completely out of touch with reality. I wonder how long they will stay this way, and how much damage they will do to American society in the process. I'm afraid of the answer. Would it be worth it to join a group that actively opposes them - perhaps EFF or EPIC?

Encoder and settings

Audio
When I go to reencode my music, the type and bit rate choices are huge:

• 130 kbps results
• 64 kbps tests
• other 64 kbps tests
  

Video
While I don't anticipate using VC-1 a lot, I figured I should capture some baseline good settings that I've come across for encoding, just in case. But before that, why do I not anticipate using VC-1? Because H.264 seems to be somewhat more universal, and computing power is increasing quickly enough that I think very long term, I'd be sorry if I used anything except H.264.


Ben Waggner writes:

My general best practices for quality-emphasized encoding:
B-Frames 1
2-pass encoding, or Lookahead=16 for 1-pass encoding
Full Chroma Search
Adaptive Motion Match
Adaptive Motion Search Range

And you want to run in Complexity 4 (one less than the max).

Depending on the content, DQuant and Adaptive Deadzone can help a lot, especially with film sources

His blog also has screen shots of "good" settings and, more importantly, detailed explainations of what they do and why.

Encoding in Linux
Here is a step-by-step write-up of transcoding in Linux.
There also may be ways to decrease lag of a PVR device.

Linux

If I'm intending on installing Linux, I suppose it would be worth it to collect up various links for things that I'm likely going to need to know.

For example, my US Robotics MAXg 802.11 PCI appears to be supported since it uses a BCM4318. But USB (which uses the BCM4320 / BCM2050) and cardbus are not yet supported (or maybe support is about there?) as of this writing (mid-2007). The USB is also identified as "Board: BCM94320R rev 3.1", which turns up a hit on google, but probably means it is based upon Broadcom's "AirForce One" reference design.

And then, of course, there are the free software drivers for the Intel graphics chipset, and various pieces of info floating around about it (like problems with video tearing). When something doesn't work, set the ModeDebug option in the xorg.conf file and post the config file and Xorg.0.log file. They also have a comprehensive developers guide on the X3000 chipset which probably would be good for their other chipsets as well.

And heaven forbid, if I ever have time to go into the kernal, here's a /. discussion of an article from IBM. IBM has a number of other possibly interesting articles.

I've seen mention that KDE integrates a lot of stuff better than GNOME, but that may not be true. There are two threads on ubuntu's forums about sizing the x-display as well - something a number of people seem to run into.

Musicmatch for Linux? Many people swear by amarok (with Sound Juicer or GRIP for ripping) - but it is KDE. Exaile is a GNOME version of that, with a ripper plugin: sudo apt-get install exaile Rhythmbox is quite popular as well, and Banshee is supposedly a cross between the two: sudo apt-get install banshee banshee-official-plugins (although some still prefer Exaile). There's another app called listen.

The big question is why Mythmusic isn't listed here.

Cool tips and tricks:

• Some (AOL, of all companies) allow you to remotely mount free filesystem space by doing

  sshfs userid@members.aol.com: /some/directory

For a mail server investigate: maildirs (with "-T news" preset). On the topic of mail server(s), ePOST looks very interesting... encrypted and p2p for redundancy.

Here are some configuration items related to optimizing a Linux system for MythTV. For example, using RAID and one big file system to record multiple shows can result in massive fragmentation (is Storage Groups the answer?... or allocsize + running xfs_fsr at night. Also studies show that you need to keep at least x% free [5% on a 250G hd])? Is threaded writing the cause for the fragmentation? Speaking of which, the consensus appears to be that affordable RAID is best done via software. Hardware RAID, done right, is mighty expensive (starts at $250 and jumps to $400 and more very quickly). Ultra-320 SCSI array may actually still be worthwhile as well?! "Whatever you do, put a pair of hot-swap drive bays in your server" (which might mean using at least SATA 2.5 for me - presumably not a problem). This guy did some interesting splits on his drives.

Restoring RAID:
Rebuilding the partition table is very easy.

sfdisk -d /dev/sda | sfdisk /dev/sdb (sda = good_disk, sdb = new_disk)
or
raidhotadd /dev/mdX /dev/sdX


Other interesting performance params: stripe_cache_size? Using 64 kByte block sizes. More complete list on this ubuntu-mythtv thread.

xfs (maybe with -o nobarrier and other tweaks for performance like noatime,nodiratime,logbufs=8,allocsize=512m) or reiserfs (version 4 or newer) are supposedly better file systems to use than ext3 for large file reasons. There seems to be differing opinions on LVM possibly causing problems, yet plenty of people use and love it, although with cavets (don't put more than one physical volume [PV] in an LV... PV's failing is not pretty). Check here on how to use pvresize to resize PV's. Installing LVM on Mythbuntu is outlined on the forums. I ended up doing and LVM over a RAID over xfs. Here's some step-by-step lvm manipulation.

Or ZFS with RaidZ2 support? ZFS has changed peoples lives? Except ZFS is only available as a (slow) userspace filesystem on Linux right now.

1TB drives are too expensive for me to be able to justify right now (~$260 for non-RAID, $100 or $150 more for RAID), so that means I'm going to have to go with smaller drives and grow/migrate the RAID later to a larger OR bigger drive, presumably using mdadm OR gparted. There is also something called resize2fs, and of course fdisk.

While on the topic of drives, backups and be live (snapshot), or not. And we need to secure the box, including mythweb and samba in particular.

Speaking of MythTV, I have another posting which is a random collection of lots of stuff... here I will collect more specific things.

• Here's a discussion of light-weight window managers. blackbox/fluxbox appears to win his support.
• Here's step-by-step for mini-myth on a thumb drive.
  

For sync'ing machines / offline files, rsync is the way to go. Here is a discussion.
Ubuntu Upgrades:

• sudo aptitude install update-manager-core; sudo do-release-upgrade
• -or-
• update-manager to do it graphically
  

Linux driver guys live here. If I'm thinking about upgrading/hacking my own patches for the kernal, start at Kernal Newbie and "how to compile a kernel". There's also a forum thread and another blog entry. Looks like it might be a one step process now with kcheck, although it is perhaps not as optimized as it could be (at least, without manually changing a file?). USB driver info on the LinuxTV wiki. There's also a Custom Kernel build page on the ubuntu site.

More interesting stuff related to the Linux Kernel:

• Rebuild guide or ultra-brief build instructions
• Kernel janitors TODO list (and an old copy... we can get past ideas by looking at past lists)
• Interesting kernel-related boot-up bug in ubuntu
• prebuilt PPA for the next Ubuntu kernal
  

New topic: sound... specifically, remote sound. EsounD is one option (perhaps outdated). Polypaudio now? Looks like a long-standing topic.


New topic: Install/package stupidity. Ubuntu has dpkg, apt-get, synoptic, and aptitude. Each does something in a little different way. Some are more powerful than others. Graphical ones don't give you good error handling (check disk space before trying to install a kernal - or at least tell you what went wrong?). Avoid them and use the command line.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure mythweb
sudo aptitude reinstall mythweb

To reinstall, it's helpful to have a list of the installed packages.
dpkg --get-selections | grep -v deinstall > ubuntu-files (picks up purge pkgs)
-or-
dpkg –-get-selections | grep "\binstall" > ubuntu-files

then later:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
dpkg --set-selections <> /home/user/location_on_remote/ubuntu-files

placed in /home/user/.local/bin, named package_list.sh and made executable.

"apt-get clean". Also try "apt-get -f update" to completely any unfinished business. apt-get install -f worth remembering as well. Then there is dpkg, and a summary of it along with apt-get.

aptitude seems more consistent than apt-get. More comparisons. aptitude has easier to read logs (in /var/log)

MPx220 cell phone

Like many people, I've found the MPx220 cell phone to be worth using. The only downsides: you really have to leave the Profile set for Outdoor so that you can reach a high enough volume to be usable anywhere except the quietest of rooms, and the screen sometimes takes a very long time to update when a reminder goes off. Oh, and my volume "up" button appears to be very slowly dieing.

A very good info page is here. Jar's can be served directly to the phone here. Exe generator that can hand .CAB's to the mobile phone is here.

Sync'ing with Outlook continues to work well for me... I'm using ActiveSync 3.8.0 on WinXP. Multisync interests me too. Maybe someday.

The wife unit would like to be able to play mp3's with it... so I need to figure that part out. Storage is added by way of the mini-SD slot, and playback program choices appear to be many:

• ASF and WMA support: TCPMP and Winvibe
• Great music lists: TCPMP and GSPlayer
• Low power: 40th Floor's iPlay (11% CPU usage), TCPMP and Resco Audio Recorder
• Avoid these: TodayPlayer and the otherwise absolutely bad WinamPAQ.

There may be a hack for recognizing the SD card all the time. TCPMP is well liked and source is available. Other forums on this topic exist.

Automatic bluetooth activesync is mentioned here. Headset comparison is here. This guy claims that the Plantronics 510 is the best at supporting connectivity features via profiles. Jabra JX-10 gets good reviews. samsung wep410 works good, but doesn't retain itself well. So so: BT-150. Mixed reviews: BT350 - some love it, some do not. Some complain of lots of background noise, others do not. Comprehensive list, sorted approximately by rating, at Cnet. Other good ones: HBH-300 (bulky over-the-ear portion that may not be compatible with sunglasses), Voyager 510 (slightly less bulky, but still not great looking), BH-900 (what about comfort?), Jawbone. There are a number of forums with unofficial reviews as well: howard has several.


Here are some of the software spec's on the MPx220:

Windows Moible 2003 Second Edition
Version 4.21.1008 (Build 15101.1.3.2)
Processor: ARMv4 OMAP1611
ROM update versions...
Operator: 0.480.1003.0
Manufacturer: 1.430.0.0
Microsoft: 4.21.15101.0
Language: 0.210.0.0
File system: 4.21.15101.0
Java info:
JSRs: 120, 135, 185
MIDP-2.0
CLDC-1.1
Heapsize 1939KB
Phone: 25 MB free

A semi-comprehensive list of Smart phones appears to be here. And my favorite site is still alive after a huge number of years: phone scoop! It appears to say that there are few phones newer or better than the MPx220 (which is now going on almost 3 years old?) ... The MPx and the HTC Star Trek / Cingular 3125 / Smartlfip 8500 is all there is? Wow.

Good review sites are here, here and here. And then there's a site for "product review search."