Worth it

Wave at Google

2009-12-10T09:21:00.002-06:00

I need to get on the Wave learning curve and see how useful a tool it is. Google typically puts out good stuff (if only some mail client/app would duplicate their conversation view), so if they went to this much trouble, it is probably worth it. After all, it seems like a true "generic" p2p application.

In the flash cloud

2009-10-27T09:39:00.009-05:00

Seems like something should be worth doing here... just need to figure out what:

Pay attention to the /. article on Amazon "stealing" more business from companies by offering mysql. Another article I haven't had time to read calls Cloud computing the "Hotel California of tech." Many people seem to ignore the downsides of cloud/sharing though: /.

But virtualization appears to be here to stay:

SR-IOV demo
Lots of ubuntu related virtualization and cloud related stuff on http://ubuntero.org and youtube, including even in the ubuntu luid announcement.
Ubuntu had a magazine dedicated to "in the cloud"
VirtualBox seems to be a favorite over VMWare and others.

The other hot topic worth tracking right now is solid-state SATA drives, seeing as how MySpace just replaced all their spinning disks with SSD's. Just beware of consumer grade SSD's. In other news, Intel just up'ed their speed with a firmware update. Speaking of Intel, lifespan is quickly becoming "not a problem":

X25-M mobile product using multi-level-cell (MLC): 5 year of useful life under typical laptop workloads with up to 20 GB of host writes a day (~36.5 Tetabytes of writes if you do 20 GB * 5 years). Doesn't seem like much, but that means you're re-writing 1/4 of your 80 GB drive every day. 0.15 Watts - which is indeed about 1% of a spinning drive.
X25-E extreme (server) product using single-level-cell (SLC): 64 GB drive supports 2 Petabyte of lifetime random writes (so it seems like they are saying each storage location is good for 32k writes [I'm assuming that wear leveling doesn't get the in way]). 2.5 Watts still, but I expect this will drop considerably on their next generation.

Crucial just released a high performance (faster than Intel) MLC based on the Indilinx controller. Turns out that Patriot Torqx and OCZ Vertex (and maybe Agility) are also based on that controller - no word yet on durability. Other items of interest regarding SSD's: TRIM and Garbage Collection (GC). OCZ firmware upgrade allows for this.

Intel's next gen SSDs are due in mid-2010, possibly even with SATA 3.0 support.
One ISP offers SSD drives - I expect lots more will soon too. Wonder about renting, or rent-to-own on SSD's.

Crypto junk

2009-10-19T17:43:00.002-05:00

There is an interesting "stick figure" how-to guide for AES. Quite interesting (if this can be explained this way, what else could be worth explaining in this way)!

Protecting against valid users

2009-10-14T15:48:00.002-05:00

Not sure that it is really worth it, but /. has an interesting thread on forkbombs and protecting against them.

Themes

2009-09-21T16:13:00.005-05:00

I'm getting the urge to do a theme. I have a decent awareness of usability issues, and there sure are a lot of usability issues with the current MythTV themes. With 0.22 being released (and 0.23 being promised soon after), it might be worth starting now.

I like the indicators of this one. With animated menus, it could look like paper folding and unfolding, left and right, and for a different level of menu, unfolding up and down. I'm thinking that every other menu should scroll the opposite way... if I press down, I should keep pressing down until I get to the option I want... then press right, and keep pressing right until I get to the option I want, then down, etc.

An XML editor for the mythtvtheme sure would be nice for this... wonder what that would take?!
An XML theme editor, perhaps (which says "create the .pro, .conf, .xml and image files that define the theme")?

Font resources:
* One of the fonts that is supported by the Web Open Font Format (Mozilla is adding support for this)

Twitter / Facebook use(full/less)ness

2009-09-21T15:55:00.002-05:00

Some interesting quotes worth saving:

"In Philadelphia I watched many attendees using Twitter as if it was crack. Can't chat with you and look at you because I may miss that Joe just took a piss and Betty just ran out of mascara. Twitter won't succeed if this route continues." - Allen Stern

Facebook is actually less useful than a number of other apps - it just somehow obtained critical mass (probably by focusing on high school and college people), and provides an API for third-party games ... and who doesn't like games, especially ones that allow you to show off to your friends and family how well you are doing. Mixx, StumbleUpon, or even Twitter might be better because there is no way to see what people are writing about without getting approval to be their friend. "follow" does seem like a more accurate term.

Widgets, widgets everywhere

2009-09-14T11:51:00.003-05:00

There is even a "Widgets lab" website... Vizio looks like they don't want to have to depend on Yahoo for Widgets, so they are doing their own. Another brief here, but I can't find any details. Samsung's isn't hard to find though. Maybe they are calling it "Vizio Internet Apps" (VIA).

Linux sound

2009-09-03T20:47:00.002-05:00

Pulse Audio might be worth it, but the wide spread reports of problems with it (especially on Ubuntu) really makes one wonder. Here is someone trying to lead the lost through the storm.

The state of GPG

2009-09-02T11:26:00.002-05:00

According to Robert Burrell Donkin, it would be worth it to backport GNU 2.0.12 to other Ubuntu versions. Of course, I'm planning on moving to 9.10, so I'll be picking it up anyway. The main point of the article: generate your key under 2.0.12.

Splitters

2009-08-23T16:32:00.002-05:00

Eventually there are splitters, and then there are directional couplers. The cable company thinks it is worth using directional couplers. See also: discussion on mythtv-users on 12 Aug 2009.

Keyboards

2009-08-20T14:34:00.012-05:00

I guess it is worth paying extra money for a decent keyboard. I got the ultra-cool looking Logitech Cordless Wave, but the range stinks. I tried adding an external antenna, but that doesn't help at all.

I guess I need to investigate other RF solutions, some of which include:

Microsoft Optical Desktop Elite for Bluetooth
Rimini / Media Tech?) MT1218 (possibly discontinued) and others
Logitech Cordless Desktop Optical 967320-0403 (should I trust another Logitech?)
Grandtec Long Ranger 900Mhz Keyboard and Mouse Combo (KEY-2000 / G126-1040 / UPC 768267091239)
DSI FK-760 (10 meters claimed)
Adesso 2.4 GHz RF Wireless Multimedia/MCE Keyboard with Optical Trackball WKB-3200UB, $60 or maybe the WKB-4000UB. I think Linux compatibility has been fixed. 3200 looks to have the best reviews, and even that may not be ideal.
Microsoft Wireless Entertainment Desktop 7000, $110.
diNovo Media Desktop Edge, Mini, and/or Laser (10 or more meters)
Gyrations recent keyboards (10 meters)
http://www.fentek-ind.com/rf-wireless-keyboard.htm#kbmrftb (30 meters!)
As always, Newegg's power search to the rescue (complete with "track ball" search option)

Google search: wireless touchpad. Product search shows a number of different solutions - need to compare that against the list above.

IR solutions:

Microsoft Remote keyboard for windows media center (MCE keyboard)

Unknown:

Exercise!

2009-08-09T14:27:00.004-05:00

Exercise is certainly worth it... and there are lots of ways to exercise... intelligently and not. Cross-fit seems to be relatively intelligent, although it does behave slightly as a cult.

Ab workout without doing yourself damage

GPS, mobile and not

2009-06-28T07:29:00.004-05:00

/. has a good summary of hackable mobile GPS units, including a link to the pinout for the V3 Tom Tom (which runs Linux). Just to save it from disappearing from the face of the earth and all human knowledge, here it is:

RX data in for UART ttySAC0, default rate = 115200, 3.3V TTL
Power output for accessory, I tested sourcing 100mA will no ill effects on unit
TX data out for UART ttySAC0, default rate = 115200, 3.3V TTL
Measured 1.4V output, most probably an audio line output
When connected to ground via a 1K resistor the unit reports an external line input, so presuably that’s what it is
Ground
Function unknown but when connected to ground via a 10K resistor it caused an immediate shutdown of unit.

Eventually I think it would be worth setting up an alert on ebay for a GPS unit to find one that I could cheaply connect to my Linux server.

Everyone knew it was coming

2009-06-14T21:43:00.002-05:00

There were many signs the economic bubble was bursting.

Ten-reasons-why-its-all-going-to-go-horribly-wrong

Nintendo DSi

2009-06-10T08:48:00.004-05:00

So we bought our Nintendo DSi. It might be worth trying to figure out how to get mythremote to work with it, although it appears it would, at a minimum, require a recompile since the binaries are for the original DS (not even the DS lite). Not yet sure what the hub-bub about Acekard 2i is yet, or the dldi patching tool.

Then we have the fact that Nintendo tries to lock this thing down so tight, it only accepts AAC encoded audio by default. Of course, resourceful people are already playing video and games (Games index used to be here) with it using iplayer/Moonshell2.

Then there is the IdeaS Nintendo Emulator for PC.

Ubuntu stuff

2009-06-05T10:01:00.004-05:00

Of course source control systems are worth it. The question is which. git has a large following, but there are a large number of people that bazaar may be a better fit for a large number of applications. What about bug tracking? Bugzilla is there, and I've slowly come to appreciate trac, although it definitely has some short comings. Then there is launchpad. It reminds me of Apple software. It's plenty powerful for the things you need, but if you don't want to do exactly what they provide for you, it's hard. Source code browsing stinks. Almost no-one links their bug fixes to the actual code changes. And bug statistics/reports are almost non-existent, making it a questionable choice for larger projects, and a non-starter for commerical ones (although perhaps that is the way they want it).

https://launchpad.net/launchpad-report-tool
http://people.ubuntu.com/~brian/testing_graphs/
http://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2007/02/19/ubuntu-bug-statistics-graphs-now-goes-back-6-months/
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/bug-statistics
Perhaps some of the larger users of bazaar have worked this out already?

There appears to be a way to submit bugs from outside the launchpad website. Perhaps a client could create stats by polling every bug in a module?

http://www.google.com/search?q=launchpad+client+query

Mobile phone search

2009-05-26T22:09:00.000-05:00

http://www.mobiletechreview.com/smartphone.htm has what appears to be a pretty comprehensive list of smart phones. Just need to find the newest one that is available at a decent prices (and has decent reviews).

Fool a Turing machine

2009-04-27T15:23:00.003-05:00

In case I'm ever attacked by a terminator, it might be worth keeping a list of ways to fool Turing machines handy:

Speak/write oddly. Perhaps like Yoda: Stan the trashman, am I.
Write with massive misspelling: fi yuo tyep wtih mssaive splleing errros, yuo mya be albe to fool a cmoptuer.

Reviews for audio-video stuff

2008-12-16T09:04:00.020-06:00

Finding reviews on HDTV's is not difficult. Finding good ones is though. Here's a list:

Summary sites of other reviews:
http://www.consumersearch.com/electronics
http://www.retrevo.com/s/Pioneer-BDP-51FD-DVD-Players-review-manual/id/22963ci268/t/1-2/

Review sites themselves:
http://www.bigpicturebigsound.com/tvsandprojectors.shtml
http://reviews.cnet.com (better than average reviews)
http://hdguru.com/
http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/hdtvs/
http://www.ultimateavmag.com/flatpaneldisplays/ (include settings)
http://www.plasmatvbuyingguide.com/plasmatv/reviews.html
http://www.hometheatermag.com/discplayers/pioneer_bdp-51fd_blu-ray_player/
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2341501,00.asp
http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/reviews.php (European)
http://www.trustedreviews.com/tvs/
http://tv.toptenreviews.com/flat-panel/plasma/ (barely worth it)
http://whathifi.com/Reviews/ (European?)

Intelligent discussion forums:
AVS forum
Blu-ray forum (24p discussion)
AV forum (UK)
Debug/config port for Kuro and others.
Calibration appears to be worth it, especially for $89.

Price search:
http://www.pricespider.com/
http://shopzilla.com/
http://nextag.com/
http://www.consumersearch.com/hdtv/
http://dallas.craigslist.org/
http://www.xpbargains.com/best_deal.php/plasma_television_deals.htm

Is VOIP worth it?

2008-11-18T09:51:00.002-06:00

Topic: next gen methods of doing phone service.
* Using PC for POTS

Developer resources

2008-11-10T08:32:00.006-06:00

I'm slowly realizing that the quickest path for me to help with Mythtv is to help with Mythweb. It is quite nice as it is, but I think it could be made to be considerably better.

AJAX resources

Nerd produced list of neat tricks

Perl

Examples from Acme-EyeDrops examples

Web

Create Image-less Graphs And Charts

Java

Mike's Third Contact summary of Java resources

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

2008-09-26T17:48:00.007-05:00

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.

A /. article on the Chinese firewall has some interesting observations related to this. Perhaps the government's desire to portray perfection is based on its desire to paint an image of China as being the best nation in the world, for whatever definition of "best" you want to use. You'd think that a civilization as ancient as that which China hosts would have learned a long time ago that perfection is never achievable (and any person that actually thinks for themselves will immediately identify "perfection" as simply an illusion).

And at what point do you stop the lieing? Do you take it as far as Microsoft does, and their apparent self-image of perfection that is so obviously flawed (to everyone except Microsoft) that it is a joke?

Updated years later: The Chinese govt is still at it. Of course, they aren't the only ones... no other than the DOJ of the USA got caught.

HDTV Antenna

2008-09-24T14:02:00.002-05:00

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

2008-09-08T08:36:00.002-05:00

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

2008-08-09T23:13:00.003-05:00

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

2008-07-31T09:06:00.003-05:00

Now that the MLS monopoly is supposedly finally broken, check out ZipRealty, RealQuest (division of First American CoreLogic), and Zillow.

But who has the time to do property tax protests themselves?

http://www.assessmentadvisors.com/ (35 to 50%)
http://www.cutmytaxes.com/isignup.asp/ (50%)
http://www.propertytaxprotest.com/ ($299.. a better deal if expecting savings is over $299*2/tax_rate. Tax_rate for Richardson is around 0.022 including homestead).
http://www.texasprotax.com/ (Austin)

Securing financial data

2008-06-19T23:26:00.004-05:00

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, including eCryptFS. Of course, I'll probably want to upgrade first because there have been some decent changes in the year since I installed 8.04. Someday I'll have some time to get that set up.

Printers and ink

2008-06-19T23:08:00.002-05:00

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

2008-06-06T11:39:00.001-05:00

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

Mail over the interwebs

2008-06-03T12:24:00.003-05:00

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.

Others to check out: Kerio MailServer.
I haven't yet tired to figure out where that fits into this:
RoundCube = Squirrelmail = Horde != Zimbra = Bongo (old:Hula Project) = OpenExchange = Exchange

C++ required for base Myth dev

2008-05-29T08:11:00.005-05:00

True, much of the mythweb related stuff doesn't require C++, but it's still full of OO items.

If I want to start submitting feature patches to myth, I'll need to be a little more up to speed 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?

Quote worth saving related to C++ strings:

As a reference, I'd like to
mention Matthew Wilson's chapter on efficient string concatenation in his
book "Imperfect C++". He uses expression templates (that's the technique I
just described) and gets impressive results.

With that said, your point is valid. 90% of C++ programmers will use string
classes that are very inefficient for concatenation, starting with
std::string which I hate for that reason (and many other reasons, e.g. you
have to
resort to Boost for mundane things like trimming)

by: Steven Burns[royalstream at microsoft's hot mail]

Games and Educational PC

2008-04-22T13:26:00.004-05:00

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.

Here's a /. discussion of good games (some kid friendly, some not).

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

2008-04-14T08:02:00.008-05:00

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)
ThemovieDB.org (TMDB) and 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)

Speaking of Youtube, they have a number of different formats:

Checkout this video with fmt=22. The specs are 1280 x 720, 30fps, 2000kbps video AVC, 232kbps audio AAC, 44.1khz stereo. Most videos don't support this yet or do not meet the (unknown) requirements. To embed youtube HD quality add &ap=%2526fmt%3D22 to the end of the embed code urls.
Adding &fmt=6 to the end of any youtube video's url will give you Youtube's new high quality setting. 480 x 360 ~900 kbps 44.1KHz 96 kbps Mono CBR 30 fps Video Codec: Flash Sorenson Changing the number from 6 to something else yields different formats though it's not obvious which numbers work.
Format 18 generates an mp4 using 512 kbps h264 at 24 fps with 44.1 kHz 128 kbps AAC stereo, which is compatible with video iPods. This is way better than using a service like vixy.net, which transcodes the crappy quality youtube vid into an mp4. Using fmt=18, you get a video transcoded from the original clip the user uploaded. The bitrate is lower on the mp4 version, but since the resolution is smaller it compensates. The h.264 codec has better looking videos at lower bitrates anyway. We finally see stereo on youtube with the mp4 version! It has a widescreen 16/9 aspect ratio rather than 4/3.
Video downloaders like keepvid still work. Enter the url, click download, now grab the link and add &fmt=6 or &fmt=18 (for mp4) to the end. The good people at lifehacker created an easy to use firefox extension that will put a download link under each vid. You can also get the download url if you follow my wireshark tutorial but the process is pretty tedious. You can do it manually too, but it's annoying. Go to any video on youtube, right click then click view source. Click ctrl+F, which will open a searchbox and type &t=. Next copy the value after the t= but before any "&" characters. Grab that and the video_id and your set. The vid id is the v=something part of the url. Just copy the variables into the url below.

Video conferencing on the cheap

2008-04-10T10:15:00.005-05:00

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

2008-04-02T11:28:00.003-05:00

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

2008-04-01T15:10:00.002-05:00

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

2008-03-25T09:05:00.032-05:00

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. There is also a thread on myth-users about udev to skip the keyboard buffer.

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: Web Virtual Remote, iphone remote control, mythetomer, mythRemote, mythdroid (for Android), and for the iphone: Remote Remote and MyMote. Mythdroid includes mdd (mdd-01.pl) which intercepts music info headed for the LCDproc - this could be useful for debug and other things. 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??). Someone apparently posted a python script to do something similar from the command line.

And it would be worth being able to:

Power down the backend with a keypress or mouse button (or combination)
Restart the front-end

Since I have a combined frontend/backend, this shouldn't be too hard.

Someone has gone to the trouble of putting together some scripts to control the stereo and TV.
Commandir has a pretty comprehensive list of lirc related configs - it might be worth grabbing in case the site goes offline. Of course, it is probably based on the files semi-hidden in on the lirc website.

BTW, irw and mode2 are the two utils for debugging lirc:
$ sudo killall -9 lircd
$ sudo mode2 -d /dev/lirc0

Robots for pets?

2008-03-17T10:25:00.003-05:00

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

2008-02-21T09:28:00.008-06:00

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

2008-01-17T10:34:00.000-06:00

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

2007-12-17T13:06:00.000-06:00

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

2007-12-16T20:30:00.000-06:00

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

2007-12-07T21:41:00.000-06:00

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

2007-09-15T15:03:00.000-05:00

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

Snail mail spam

2007-09-05T17:41:00.001-05:00

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

2007-08-08T18:05:00.007-05:00

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

Speaking of sql - I'm a command-line type guy, but I'm not afraid of GUI's either... so which sql GUI/browser is best? phpMyAdmin? sqlmaestro? sqlmanager?

Lastly, the ever important debug:

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

Now for SVN / myth-dev hints/stuff:

Using 1 machine for both trunk and fixes.

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

2007-07-30T12:44:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-26T11:04:00.000-05:00

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

2007-07-25T13:14:00.001-05:00

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!

2007-07-11T07:28:00.006-05:00

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, Fat wallet and Slick Deals (which has a better interface than FW)

General shopping sites I've found good deals at:

Typical: newegg/chiefValue, Amazon.com, tigerdirect, macmall
Smaller: 6thAve, J&R, Butterfly, Vann's, Crutchfield (during sales), Abt, mwave.com, buy.com, ecost.com (although beware of shipping delays that cause you to be ineligible for mail-in rebates), "Monitor outlet"
Hit or Miss: Abes
Beware: zoommania (lists things they don't have, and may not sell items unless you buy overpriced accessory packages) and Regal camera

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

2007-07-09T10:18:00.000-05:00

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

The Internets

2007-07-09T07:53:00.002-05:00

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

2007-06-19T17:27:00.006-05:00

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?

2007-06-17T21:21:00.000-05:00

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

2007-06-08T17:01:00.001-05:00

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

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

2007-06-07T13:09:00.016-05:00

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). 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

Speaking of RAID, need to read and keep in mind that read errors are becoming more common as disks get larger.

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

2007-05-29T13:51:00.003-05:00

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."

Random humor

2007-05-18T12:07:00.005-05:00

Bash.org

Stuff worth saving for the appropriate time:

response to awesome joke: Can I subscribe to your newsletter?
Variation to crazy ideas: Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter
to a stupid statement: hold on while I find a Burger King application for you...
What is your major malfunction? (or replace your with their, for a third party)
i'm going to become rich and famous after i invent a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet
Wow - so YOU are the one responsible for http://www.timecube.com/
Pranks
Daily WTF

--------> joke .. o . /\ <---- you ../ \

Highspeed design

2007-03-09T22:36:00.000-06:00

At first glance, it would seem that the Proadlizer's or X2Y caps are worth it. More discussion is on c.a.f, which also points to the SI-list. IDC caps are another choice.

In a semi-related discussion: some have claimed that ISOLA FR408 (Dk of 3.7) rates very close to N4000-13 SI (Dk of 3.5 to 3.7, 0.009 loss @ 10G), but most discussions I've seen seem to indicate it is a noticable step below. It definitely costs less though, so it might be a decent tradeoff. Not that 13SI is ideal: it may have delam problems at RoHS soldering temperatures. PLC621, Matsushita Megtron 5 and IS620 (Dk of 3.5, Df of 0.008 @ 10G) are matches to SI and are also supposedly RoHS compatible. IS415 may be a decent 10G match as well. Also, 4000-12 might be a valid alternative to 4000-13 for Pb-free processes, if I could find the specs for it. Oh, and don't forget about moisture absorption. Lastly, avoid the use of Pure tin plated compoents if possible, otherwise try to source parts with post Sn plate annealing of the suface finish. Other good articles.

IEEE802.3ap Improved FR-4 (Mid Resolution Signal Integrity):
–100Mhz: Dk≤3.60;Df≤.0092
–1Ghz: Dk≤3.60;Df≤.0092
–2Ghz: Dk≤3.50;Df≤.0115
–5Ghz: Dk≤3.50;Df≤.0115
–10Ghz: Dk≤3.50;Df≤.0125
–20Ghz: Dk≤3.40;Df≤.0140

Temperature and Humidity Tolerance (0-55degC, 10-90% non-condensing):
–Dk:+/-.04
–Df: +/-.001

Resin Tolerance (standard +/-2%):
–Dk:+/-.02
–Df: +/-.0005

These slides seem to show certain no-Fr4 materials being close to the same price, but considerable improved 10G performance: Nelco 6000, TacPreg, Taconic RF35, and Rogers 4350. I'm sure there are some trade-offs though... yep, the DDI chart shows them to not be quite so good in thermal performance.

Terms:

Td - Thermal decomposition temperature
Tg - Glass transition temperature
CTE - Coefficient of thermal expansion
IST - Internal Stress Test

Algorithm stuff

2007-03-05T16:20:00.000-06:00

Reed-Solomon: There is a free implementation available here. Would it be worth implementing a KV (Koetter-Vardy) algorithm (aka soft-decision decoding) to improve RS decoders? Perhaps not. Google gives a surprising number of hits of their name combined with FPGA and Solomon.

Arbiters: Interesting idea for a very simple arbiter.

Level it

2007-03-05T08:59:00.001-06:00

I'm on a new quest: to find the highest accuracy laser level I can. I have some top-secret leveling I want to do. How am I going to justify the purchase? Like all good top-secret programs, I'm going to buy it for an altogether different purpose: to install floor tiling. So I want it to do chalk lines as well. Of course, a hugely expensive precision laser level may not stoop so low as to do chalk lines on the ground, but if I can find one, it might be worth it.

Accuracy seems to be spec'ed at 100 feet. Ones costing MANY hundreds of dollars are accurate to 0.125 inches at 100 feet. That accuracy would probably do for me, although honestly I'd kill for 1/16".

Turns out that professionals use the CompuLevel made by Stanley Tools (New Britain, CT). It was designed by Dennis L. Vories, P.E. Of course, it's $1000. A less expensive method would be a water level - either Watrlevel, or just make one myself. They also (very honestly) list all their competitors.

House / soil movement

2007-03-04T07:49:00.000-06:00

Here are the resources worth reading on the topic:

(mostly found through this search on google).

Most recommendations seem to center on around:

Sloping soil away from foundation
Watering regularly to prevent huge cracks from appearing (which allows for non-standard water flow)
Monitor soil moisture (possibly with instruments at multiple locations around foundation?) - aka "soil resistivity" OR "soil moisture measurement"
Consider setting up barriers to roots and/or water movement
And of course, gutters

Alternative investments

2007-03-01T21:02:00.002-06:00

Before I get started... wikinvest seems kinda neat. Google search also.

Ice machines?
Wind? (see below)
Solar?
Mini storage? Or mini-storage?
What about just boat and RV storage?
See "inside self storage"
CEDIF's (why doesn't the USA have something like this?)
Government tax liens? (how risky?)

China seems to be getting pretty risky despite this or this.

Other good links for ratio guidelines can be found here (Interest Carry Ratio = Net operating incoming / Loan Amt.... 13% great; debt service ratio = Net Operating Incoming / Debt Service... typical requirement in the 1.1 to 1.25 minimum. 1.52 would likely rate a "good investment"; default (break even) ratio = operating expenses + debt service / gross income... a .83 means 17% return on investment; capitalization rate (CAP rate)

"Tactical-allocation fund managers favor stocks over bonds"
"how to invest in wind farm" (including this)
"investment trust wind farm"
"invest rv OR motorhome OR "motor home" storage"
Off-shore funds

Investment companies or links:

http://www.excelsiorfunds.com/insights_Triltsch.asp
http://www.escapeartist.com/Sovereign_Society/Offshore_Funds.html
http://www.energyinvestments.nl/

Or do I just stay with just ever-so-slightly non-traditional stuff:

De-worsify
Wait for good buys, maybe following big movers like this around via sec filings
ETF's
Funds and stocks
Hedge funds (maybe check out forums). More research here.

Is there a market inefficiency in the NAV vs. market pricing of closed-end or ETF's? If the YTD, 1-year, or 3-year NAV indicates that the fund is doing well, market pricing should eventually follow. For example, sorting YTD so that the largest loss is listed first, you find plenty of funds with market returns considerably larger than the NAV return. Theory would hold that you buy these and wait for market return to re-converge. This assume the fund doesn't always track with that amount of offset between market and NAV returns. Of course, ETF's may not be "better" in general. Same thing here.

And then there is Wind farm operating companies? (or equipment NEG Micon, Vestas, and Nordex) Search and Search. Operating companies: Canada companies and US companies. General news and company lists and investment site. What about partnerships like Creststreet? Or trusts. Although I guess I'm not ready for an income trust. Never heard of this before. Some way to invest in ESS?

"If you really want wind in your portfolio, you need to go overseas," said Ms. Real de Azua.

Portfolio 21 (PORTX), an SRI mutual fund managed by Portland, Oregon-based Progressive Investment Management, does just that.

"Our approach to the volatility and risk associated with such an immature industry is to identify one or two companies in the sector that we really want to bet on because we feel they are positioned well to be survivors as the industry matures," Progressive Investment Management Chair Carsten Henningsen told SocialFunds.com.

"In wind, it's going to be Vestas (VWSYF.PK) and NEG Micon (NEGMF.PK)," said Mr. Henningsen.

Vestas, the world's largest wind turbine manufacturer, and NEG Micon are both based in Denmark, as is Bonus (BONU.CO).

The German wind market is by far the largest in the world and includes Enercon (ENDC.PK) and Nordex (NRDXF.PK).

Inconsistent wind-energy incentives in the U.S. have made it a challenge for foreign and domestic companies to operate in this country. However, Gamesa (GAM.MC) is expanding beyond its home market in Spain and entering the U.S. market.

Perhaps find a company that took advantage of the U.S. government established wind energy production tax credit (PTC).

Wind farm info:

Payoff time and wind locations within the United States
Another payoff analysis

Counterpoints:

Aggregated news site with seemingly positive and negative slants (one problem with wind: during summer, the wind typically slows down considerably)

Companies:

Clipper Windpower (CWP on London exchange - CRPWF.PK in the US?): turbines and wind farms.
Renewable Energy Holdings PLC

Google for competitor OR competition to these companies?
london stock wind power OR generation OR farm
invest in wind

Hedge funds, or funds of funds of hedge funds:

Random investment sites

http://seekingalpha.com/

There's also merger, acquisition, and arbitrage:

Primo software

2007-01-04T14:02:00.047-06:00

Interesting website that tracks alternatives:
http://alternativeto.net/desktop/mantis-bug-tracker/?platform=online

The following pieces of software are worth downloading and using (mostly Windows stuff):

Alternatives To Enterprise Apps, Cisco VPN hints for Ubuntu, and Pidgin plugin for MS Office Communications Server
PrimoPDF works fine for .pdf generation - there are probably others
Speaking of PDF, what viewer is the best? That seems to be a toughie. Lots of people seem to like Sumatra for a light-weight reader, but the stinking thing doesn't even have a text search? HELLO?! Copy and paste out of a .pdf seems like pretty minimal functionality as well. There looks to be a fair amount of support for kpdf, but this article points out some features that it is missing compared to xpdf. Others complain about the rendering in Evince not looking so good compared to Acroreader (others make the same complaint about fox-it). Here is a list/discussion of readers. There are a few articles on the net about optimizing acrobat so you don't feel its bloat so much. PDF-XChange viewer doesn't look bad so far... except that ctrl-wheel mouse doesn't zoom.
PDF editors are another 'nother ball of wax. Almost seems Linux is ahead in that area: scribus pdfedit flpsed
Excalibur 32-bit is a pretty neat RPN calculator with LOTS of built in conversions (although I need to memorize some short-cut keys and find a way to turn off the automaticly-enable-the-num-lock "feature"). But don't forget the good-alternative, calc98
IZARC supports every compression method under the sun. WinRar and 7-zip included.
Teraterm continues at Sourceforge, with support forum even.
Remote access: dtach instead of screen (here's hints on screen command line options), and nomachine's NX rather than VNC. NX may require their own ssh client? Some people insist ssh + vnc is easier and more secure. NX wasn't too hard to install though. It's a little more picky than VNC: color depth has to be the same on any machine you wish to re-open an existing session on. It also chews up a surprising amount of CPU on the client machine. Then there are alternatives like Microsoft Remote desktop, crossloopTeamViewer, mikogo.com, zolved, gitso, netviewer, and LogMeIn. Other methods include VNC based stuff: reverse VNC or UltraVNC SingleClick, showmypc.com, possibly with OpenVPN. /.
Office-like suites like Scalix (formerly HP Openmail), Open-Xchange, and Zimbra (among many others). KOrganiser for KDE. /. Distributed offices pose unique challenges.
Use TeXmacs for perfect document (and math) rendering. Wikipedia's LaTeX page lists other packages also. Check out Kile, TeXShop (MacOS), and TeXnicCenter for an integrated TeX environment. WYSIWYG editing can be performed with vi & Evince, TexMakerX > TeXmaker > LyX (and its variant KLyX) > Kile. gedit+latex > Emacs+AUCTeX | Emacs+pdflatex | vim-latex (about in order, according to the comments on a ubuntu forum thread). More complete list is on the Tug site.
IGES viewers (mechanical engineering related): Rhino and Powershape (from Delcam)
Synergy: Screen/computer sharing freeware
Alternative to Visio: DIA
To back up my kids DVD's before she scratches them all up: Anydvd & dvdclone or DVDcloner.
DVD backup tools are discussed here, including mention of dvdfab which I decided to purchase since they provide a free version. DVDFab works well. Not the most intutitve GUI, but functional and works under WINE. Check out gnomebaker, x264enc, and/or k3b for Linux.
HD-DVD and Blu-Ray tools like BackupBluRay are listed on doom9 There was also an article in Wired.
Other software is listed here.
I've used SilentNight DVD burner. Very barebones, but appears to work. What is up with these pieces of software that are so non-intuitive? Maybe InfraRecorder would be better?
looks like there is an mpeg4 converter (transcoder?) called handbrake and maybe another called AutoGK
K-Lite Mega Codec Pack appears to be recommended as well, although Standard edition appears to be all that is really needed. K-Lite products may have a number of ads.
VLC media player seems to play just about anything... is mplayer or Media Player Classic (MPC) any better? And then there's GOM and smplayer. smplayer may play ripped DVDs better, but seems more buggy.
For DRM infested files, check out these removal tools.
OST2PST or libpst for converting offline Outlook folders to mail-line. Microsoft is saying that they will open the .pst format spec.
Speaking of mail and folders, Pegasus Mail has a mind-boggling following and supposedly blows Thunderbird away.
scanpst.exe for repairing Outlook .pst files
gnucash instead of Quicken? Or KmyMoney? Or perhaps some other alternatives to Intuit who seems to think they rule the world now. Or do I just work around their ignorant behavior?
LedgerSMB appears to be quite popular for general ledger software
Pidgin (formerly gaim) or Miranda for a multi-format instant messenger client. Pidgin is more polished, while Miranda seems more compact. Feature level seems comparable. Empathy might be there someday, but the version included in Ubuntu 9.10 is so lacking in usability and features, it is downright shameful.
Now that Yahoo has discontinued Musicmatch (no wonder... after making it unusable), alternatives include MediaMonkey, amarok (Linux only for now, win32 coming soon), Songbird, now Banshee, ... others? Update: Wife says MediaMonkey is ok, but not super.
Recovery programs: I'm sure there are other image repair programs than pixrecovery, and probably lots of good undelete programs other than Pandora Recovery, Undelete Plus, or EASEUS - but these get fairly decent marks in my survey. PC Inspector File Recovery also? Snapfiles has the best (seems reasonably objective) list I've found so far.
Virus software. Oh virus software. It's more difficult choosing one of these than finding an elephant that was born purple. And then you have to wonder how honest the reviews are. This needs a whole list by itself.
Bit torrent software: Many consider Azureus to be a java bloated system log, so uTorrent seems to be a favorite for both Windows and Linux, but requires Wine on Linux. For some reason I'm resisting using it because of the Wine requirement... so next on the list include qBittorrent, kTorrent (1.x didn't support DHT), and deluge. Multi-user (especially one that allows remote web-based access via http): TorrentFlux-b4rt, TorrentVolve (which uses Azureus), maybe qBittorrent. I installed qBittorrent and am reasonably happy with it. It has a web-interface as well now.
USB sniffing: SniffUSB - and it seems to be the most recent one, at least when
compared to usbsnoop and SnoopyPro.
Circuit Simulation: 5spice, LTspice, Circuitlogix
Tools for teaching programming, especially for kids: Scratch (awesome), Kodu (/.)
Software for switches/routers: MLDonkey, Tomato, etc.
Allan swears by Total Commander. I have to admit it isn't bad, although I haven't used it to the extent he has.
One of the features of Total Commander is a decent utility to produce file differences. A mythtv developer swears by Araxis Merge. I noticed there are open source alternatives.
Hex editors... probably quite a few. Xvi32 was suggested. I installed Bless on Ubuntu and it is pretty cool.
Document/Content management systems... good: Alfresco, OpenText, Knowledge Tree, bad: Documentum
IDE's: (I think I had a list somewhere else, but can't find it) kdevelop with ctags integration is supposedly quite good for tracking down where code is, but may require more mouse interaction than emacs or egrep(?)

Example prescription from here:

ComboFix is amazing. It's simple, but it automates a lot of tools that are a bit of a pain to use on their own. Ten minutes, and most malware is somewhat neutered.
-plus-
MalwareBytes is amazing. ComboFix always misses stuff, but it lets us install MalwareBytes (also free) which finishes the job. I haven't seen any virus MB couldn't remove.

Startup manager/Hijack this
Firefox w/ adblock
NOD32 w/ latest signatures
Windows updates daily
IESPYAD
Spybot/Adaware

Another (free) list:
ZoneAlarm (free) - Firewall
AVG Free 7.5 (free) or NOD32 (pay) or Avira Antivir (semi-free) - Virus Scanner
Ad-aware Personal SE (free) - Adware scanner
SpywareBlaster 3.5.1 (free) - Adware/ site blocker
Windows Firewall w/ NAT Hardware firewall

Other lists for both virus/firewall: http://www.firewallguide.com/bestreviews.htm

And then there are general Microsoft stuff that isn't well known or documented:

Process explorer is a super-task manager
microcode update for early Core2Duo processors via Microsoft update
SysInternal's Process Explorer by Microsoft helps you debug stuff
It also has an event viewer which works well, but most software doesn't log its events, rendering it less than useful
Hidden Microsoft "security" folder used for opening items in outlook: run %temp%; OutlookSecureTempFolder or better yet... this link.
SUBST command does not execute in autoexec.nt: must add it to users login script
Universal Windows Slipstream
Might be able to improve performance of XP by disabling paging: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\ Control\ Session Manager\ Memory Management\ DisablePagingExecutive (set the value to be 1). There are plenty of other performance tweeks as well, like "LargeSystemCache"=dword:00000001

Then we have the best of free online resources, including one that I'd never heard of at all: http://www.blender.org
http://www.openusability.org/ looks great too

Here are other another combination (Unix / Windows) of "best free software" list

Last but not least, Linux software:

Mercurial and Git (version 1.5 or newer to pull down new branches automatically)
Apache's free Lucene engine - powerful indexing engine that handles all kinds of docs
Horde - Everything, including the kitchen sink
Valgrind and other Ubuntu debugging procedures (valgrind --leak-check=full --show-reachable=yes ). Don't forget Variants/options on Valgrind
Coverity has a static analysis tool called Prevent that looks neat. There is also krazy2.
Auto/smoke-test builds: http://winezeug.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/patchwatcher/readme.txt
Linux artist software (besides what comes with Ubuntu Studio) discussion on /. includes Lightroom ($200?). dvgrab
And of course, who can forget gimp, although some people complain about its size and complexity (/.), blender, Picasa, Irfanview, and f-spot (is that a real image editor?? People talk about its UI being poor as well... someone suggests digikam, Gthumb, GQview, or Gwenview instead),
IPtables firewall, WebMin, Asterisk 1.4, FreePBX, phpMyAdmin
Zoneminder (appears to be the best, according to /. discussion)

(this list will likely be updated as needed in the future)

Gun control, or fear control?

2007-01-03T09:02:00.000-06:00

Just because an argument is very persuasive, doesn't mean that the point being made is correct. Kinda like how a good salesman can make almost anything seem worth almost any price. So when people talk about gun control, are they right, or are they making persuasive arguments that are not backed up by the data? It is worth it to make sure you are looking at the big picture, and not just one piece of select data.

People make the point that gun-related deaths goes down when gun-control policies are put in place. Of course they do! But does the overall death rate go down, or do people just switch to different methods (looking at both suicides and murders)?

Here's an interesting study on the history of gun control in the UK. It provides but one small picture into this huge debate.

Lighting the way

2007-01-03T08:29:00.001-06:00

/. has an interesting discussion on CF blubs. They use less energy to make and use, and last considerably longer, so obviously they are worth it. Here's a quote:

I use Philips and Osram lamps. Never used cheap lamps. I also use "color 84" lamps, 83 is the regular "warm white" while 86 is the "daylight" bluish regular lamp. 84 is something in between, IIRC it was also called "natural" color. Is not as yellow as the warm whites.

Another interesting quote:

Interestingly, Mythbusters checked this out just a few weeks ago, and their methodology seemed pretty sensible. IIRC, their conclusion was that the start-up current spike for a CFL bulb was equal to about .25 sec. of running time.

Many CF blubs appear to have a problem with high humidity, like in bathrooms. Someone in that thread claims that it's the reason natural (or daylight) CF bulbs (from places like 1000bulbs.com or www.imagineenergy.net) look better is because cheap CF bulbs put out lots of green light, and the "warm" ones put out yellow light. He suggests finding high-temperature (CCT) "Daylight" fluorescents(5000K) . Someone else points out there are 6500K bulbs available - but most people are going to consider them too harsh.

A good compromise appears to be 3500 to 4000K, S/P: 1.65, and ideally a CRI greater than 85. Looks like a common part numbering scheme is 930 or 950, where the 9 means 90% and the 30 or 50 is temperature.

Sylvania

Lastly, someone provides an analysis on the current state of LED bulbs (result: less efficient and more costly).

Random schematic stuff

2006-11-30T07:35:00.000-06:00

Don't worry - 99% of the few people reading Worth-it won't understand this post: Orcad forums has a post describing schematic symbol creation. Coolly enough, there is also a "community faq" with additional details. And of course, there is a Xilinx answer record 10078.

For small projects, there are other schematic tools available, some even free.

FPGA stuff in Orcad.

Faster than a speeding CPU

2006-11-09T12:52:00.000-06:00

It seems that it would be worth considering a GPU over using a CPU for my secret project to take over the world. Forums are abuzz about GPU's like the 8800 GTX, GF8800, R600, G80, and GX2. DX10 is the latest thing. Or a stream processor.

Microcontroller/USB stuffff

2006-11-06T08:40:00.000-06:00

Note: highly technical reference bookmarks
This site seems worth keeping a link too for hardware guys like me. Same goes for the open source USB stack wiki. There's also a discussion group summary page (links to several discussion groups, as far as I can tell).

Some google search terms: philips OR NXP usb lpc2100 OR lpc214x OR lpx214 HID OR human

How wrong are your wrongs?

2006-10-31T20:34:00.002-06:00

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins: "When two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong." More explanations and examples of how something can be so incorrect, it a disservice to just call it wrong:
Scientific American: Wronger Than Wrong

I found that article on a link from John Hawks, which was linked from John Wilkins, which was linked from PZ Myers.

A race to the core2

2006-10-30T07:25:00.001-06:00

It's a race... will the price of Core2Duo machines drop below my pain threshold in time to buy one for the wife for Christmas? She wants (and actually probably needs) a new computer... it's been a long while. She mentioned wanting a DVD burner in passing a week before our wedding anniversary, but I've got bigger plans: a whole new computer that will blow her socks off. The question is who will deliver on price?

I watched prices very closely last Christmas (and almost bought her one then), and that I saw, Microcenter had some killer deals on a few select models. The question will be if the models I'm interested in will be available this Christmas. Other big box places like Best Buy, Circuit City, and Fry's (outpost.com) have decent deals, but still a step below Microcenter. PCconnection.com currently has an HP Pavilion a1640n 1.86GHz (E6300) Core2Duo with 2GB RAM 250GB hard drive for $820. I am really hoping for an E6600 for something around $600 in three months... but will it really fall that far from the current ~$1100? I'm not impressed with system prices on Pricewatch.com, and pricegrabber has almost no selection. Amazon.com has even less. Tigerdirect will hopefully have something, and maybe ones I don't normally think about like Costco, Sam's, CDW, Office Depot, or Office max. Staples seems to have some outstandingly crazy prices sometimes as well.

Or maybe I should just build my own like I used to when I had lots of spare time research the good parts to do such things.

Or maybe I should lower my sights a little to an E6400 system. Mid-post-update from 8 months later: Core 2 is out in force and lots of performance numbers are available. The E6600 is indeed a kick-ass processor, but you can overclock almost any Core 2 and have it kick-ass. Tom's hardware has CPU comparison charts, and they seem to pretty well show that the E2160 is even on most tasks (except heavy duty transcoding) with the E6300 and E6320. Not all that surprising since the clock rate is so close. The E6400/E6420 is a noticable step up in performance (and price) from there, and then then the E6600/E6650 is a noticable step up again. But in reality, the E2160 is almost unbeatable in terms of price per performance - even before you over clock it!

There are a number of posts and reviews online which seem to indicate that playback of H.264/mpeg-4/AVC/JVT/H.26L streams is considerably aided by a decent graphics card, but even then, it requires a CPU with decent HP. Any Core 2 duo running ~2 GHz or faster (overclocked or not) should be able to keep up though. And AMD X2 5000+ or FX-62 would probably also do it, although I'm guessing power would be noticably higher. To keep the power low and the system small (after all, you don't really need a hard-drive if you boot from CD-rom - and just one high-end video card), what about a mobile on desktop (MoDT)? Intel has the following (surely incomplete) list of motherboards:

Gigabyte: GA81945GMMFY-RH
Aopen: i945GTm-VHL / i945GTt-VFA (available through ASI Corp and Ingram Micro)
MSI: 945GT Speedster-A4R (available through ASI Corp)
Asus: N4L-VM DH (available through ASI Corp and Synnex Corp)

And system vendors:

Shuttle
MSI
FIC
Gigabyte
ECS
Aopen

There are sites dedicated to silent components... like this one.

And there is a new generation of motherboards just starting to come out that have onboard video cards with digital outputs (DVI or more likely HDMI). Forums are going crazy about them. Sounds like there are a few growing pains (vendors leaving off Firewire, or placing SATA connectors in strange places), and there are questions if 1080p High-def stuff like Blu-ray or HD-DVD will play back at full-frame rate - but those will get solved with time. The biggest wait is going to be for one with a video chipset that Linux (and therefore Mythtv) supports (and which can make use of the hardware acceleration). Cause evidentially, there is a big mis-communication going on about HDCP support (or lack there-of by most video card manufacturers). Or at least, there used to be. Eventually real HDCP support is finally appearing, although perhaps still not for Linux. H.264/mpeg-4/AVC/JVT/H.26L is still lacking eventually. More confirmation here. Hrmmm... Via might have it, although some have said it stinks. Are there others?

A huge motherboard matrix is available here.

I'm semi-converging on a E4300 OR E4400 overclocked to around 3 GHz. No-one has high hopes for H.264/AVC hardware acceleration support under Linux, so I guess we'll just have throw more GHz at the problem. The sticking point is the motherboard and graphics card. I'd like to support Intel with their open source efforts, and the G35 chipset is coming out next quarter which supports integrated HDMI. It will be very tempting. I'm thinking booting up on a flash stick to avoid the noise and heat of a hard drive.

On thing to be on the lookout for is overscan issue(s)... some drivers output a signal that assumes that the t.v. will be overscanning, but not all t.v.'s do... some are 1:1.
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2007-May/

G33 motherboards with digital video outputs built in supposedly:

ECS G33T-M (was supposed to have DVI-D, but almost looks like it was not produced and DVI was dropped on -M2?)
Intel DG33T (or is it TLM ?) (DVI port but 1080 may require an ADD2 card?)
Gigabyte GA-G33M-S2H (HDMI, but according to this, and THIS, the PCIe x16 slot only supports x4!)
Shuttle SG33G5 (HDMI)

G33's without digitial video out:

Foxconn G33M-S: Intel ICH9R, but only 4 SATA, RTL8110SC PCI GbE and ALC888-8chan Azalia audio codecs
GA-G33M-DS2R: Supposedly a good combo of features and ability to overclock, although perhaps not for CPU's with 800 MHz. Also missing S/PDIF out on the rear panel: only an internal connector

G35 motherboards:

Gigabyte: GA-G35M-DS2R (G35+ICH8R) Internal: 2xPCI + (PCIe x 1) + (PCIe x 16?) + 4 DIMM (DDR2-1066) + 2xGSATA (Gigabyte branded JMicron SATA) + 4xSATA. Dual heatsinks. Smallish
Gigabyte: GA-8IBL-G also a G35 board??? Internal: 1xPCI + 4x(PCIe x 1) + 1x(PCIe x 16) + 4 DIMM slots + 8xSATA. Heatsinks on north and south. biggish
ASUS:P5E-VM (G35+ICH9R) Internal: 2xPCI + (PCI-express x 1) + (PCI express x 16?) + 4 DIMM slots + 2xSATA + 2xSATA. Smallish
ECS: G35T-M (G35 + ICH9DH) uATX G35 + ICH9DH w/DDR2 HD Audio 8ch (Realtek) GbE by Intel and HDMI. Internal: 2xPCI + (PCI-express x 1) + (PCI express x 16?) + 4 DIMM slots + 6xSATA. Heatsink only on north(?). Smallish
Albatron PXG35 (G35+ICH8). Realtek HD Audio. Dual Gigabit Ethernet. Internal: 2xSATA+ 4xSATA+ 2xPCI + 2x(PCI-express x 1) + 2x(PCI express x 16?) . 5-phase power? No floppy drive connector?? Bigish
Biostar G35D2-M7 2xPCI + (PCI-express x 1) + (PCI express x 16?) + 4 DIMM slots + ?xSATA internal. No heatsinks. Smallish
Foxconn G35M-S (G35 & ICH8R): 1 PCIe x16, 1 PCIe x1, 2 PCI slots, 4 DIMM slots (dual channel DDR2-800 - 8GB max), 4 SATA II, 12 USB 2.0, 2 IEEE 1394a, 1 ATA 133. 7.1 audio. Heatsink on north and south Smallish
Note that some list the Foxconn G337MA-8EKRS2H as (Intel G35 + ICH9R), but it appears to probably be a G33 (also has integrated graphics) with 4 x SATA II and supports DDR2-1066/800/667/553.
Jetway G35DAG-PB 2xPCI + 2x(PCI-express x 1) + 2x(PCI express x 16?) . At least 3xSATA, possibly 6xSATA. Considerable heatsinks. floppy + IDE? 4-phase power? Bigish
MSI G35M (MS-7362??) original prototypes (mid-2007) Internal: 2xSATA-something + 4xSATA-something + 6 SIMM slots + 2xPCI + (PCI-express x 1) + (PCI-express x 16??) + IDE + floppy?. Smallish
MSI 7358?? (soon to be production G35M? or was it a G33 board?): 5+1 SATA, 7.1 sound+PCIe 16X+1 PCIe 1X +two PCI ports+ 4 SIMM slots. IDE connector. Passive supplies on north and south. 4 phase power? No mention of HDMI/DVI/or not.
MSI G35M-FI also?? Internal: ?xSATA-something + ?xSATA-something + 4 SIMM slots + 2xPCI + (PCI-express x 1) + (PCI-express x 16??). Smallish. Big heatsinks. Beware of G33 part number boards being advertised as G35's on these -FI's.
AOPEN IG35 Internal:1xPCI + (PCI-express x 1) + (PCI-express x 16??). 4xSATA. No heatsinks. No floppy?

There is a list of some of the known issues in Linux/MythTV with G35 on the ubuntu forum.
It's quite possible not many will have HDMI ports. Here's why: It is understood that any vendor launched HDMI products required to Digital Content Protection LLC to provide 10,000 US dollars each year in royalties, and product certification fee of 6,000 US dollars each, each sold an HDMI products need to pay 0.15 US dollars, such as HDMI products bearing the logo with pay 0.05 US dollars, the above amount does not include HDCP support. HDCP annual fee of 15,000 US dollars and 1,000 dollars to buy 10,000 HDCP Key, 2,500 dollars to buy 100,000 HDCP Key, and 5,000 US dollars can be bought 1,000,000 000 HDCP Key.Any unauthorized manufacturers make HDCP Key, a maximum fine of one million US dollars and 8 surcharge will be retroactive to all the illegal use of HDCP Key products authorized payments.

A few other pics (possibly taken at the same show) are here. Nope, different show. The number of populated SATA connectors on the MSI board is different. Yet another set is here.

Southbridge choices:

ICH9R = RAID support (but "cheap" RAID solutions are supposedly no better than software RAID, and in fact, can create hardware compatibility/migration problems. 6 SATA connectors
ICH9DH = same as R, but without RAID. 4 SATA connectors
ICH9DO = same as R, but noViiv support (i.e. no support for Quick Resume technology) - 4 SATA connectors

Hopefully Native command queuing (NCQ) is supported by these chipsets - I think it is, via the "AHCI" driver. dmesg (or kernel log) should show something like:

ata2.00: ATA-7, max UDMA/133, 321672960 sectors: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32)

Hot plug is something that a number of people recommend, also.

JSata is supposedly just a cheap device to provide IDE support, and must go through the PCI-e bus.

Speaking of hard-drives, Seagate yanked out the acoustic management from the Barracuda series right after the 7200.7. Their 750 GB doesn't have it. Samsung T166 does, as does Maxtor. But makes access times slower. Here's a recent hard drive review and here. Storage review also seems worth checking out. Other items (performance differences) regarding Seagate. But is Maxtor owned by Seagate now, complete with the same firmware? Also, each brand appears to have drives marketed more towards 24/7 operation: Seagate: NS drives and Barracuda ES (enterprise) drives. Maxtor: MaxLine. Western Digital: RAID edition (RE, I think. RE2's have five year warranty). Or do I just go with lowest power and quietest drive, the Caviar GP (500G p/n: WD5000AACS and WD5000ABPS). Maybe one of these and one other brand.

It would be nice if the motherboard included the ADD2/SDVO option, but if it doesn't here's some lists of possible sources:

The list at Freedesktop.org

How much memory do have? Here's a good discussion on 32-bit vs. 64-bit OS's and limitations.

Update: maybe rather than a G45-based system, I'll try for mythTV front end based on a Centrino Atom processor technology (Menlow):

* Atom processor (Silverthorne; a new processor architecture, LPIA, Low Power on Intel Architecture)
* SCH (System Controller Hub; Poulsbo; a single chip) with GMA 500 graphics (=Imagination’s POWERVR SGX graphics and POWERVR VXD multi-standard HD video technologies) supporting 1080i HD video
But will any of those devices have a way to attach HDMI? The datasheet seems to imply so!

Orbitzzzz has changed

2006-10-29T07:32:00.000-06:00

Didn't Orbitz used to provide a way to compare airfares across five days worth of arrival and departure times? Now it's just 3 days. What's next, one day? :-)

Maybe I should start hanging out at
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/index.php

Attic stuff

2006-09-15T22:33:00.000-05:00

Getting more ceiling and duct insulation is definitely worth it! Save money in the long run, especially if you do the work yourself.

Masterflow INSLV8 R6 duct insulation: $4.69

Frostking also makes some.

The attic door needs a cover something fierce... I'm wondering how long it takes to pay off a $140 door cover like this, or a $200 one like this! Ah... this is better. Or you can pay $30 for a piece of cardboard.

Also, how much attic ventilation you need. Update: Or here. Or here (which says one square foot per 150 or 300 sq. feet of attic space [dependent on the lack or presence of a vapor barrier])

Speaking of upstairs optics, a google search on "Perforated radiant barrier humidity" produces interesting results.

Also, some less "opinionated" (i.e., not written by someone trying to sell you something) comments on them might be worth reading:

Gov/rb_01.html

The last part of this page has links to tables so you can estimate if it is worthwhile:

Gov/rb_02.html

Update:

Guess what else goes up in the attic? Air filters, at least for me. Currently I have a MicroPower Guard Electronic Polarized Media Air cleaner with carbon. Mouth full. Amana & Goodman (for whatever it is worth) seems to endorse them (A1EAC and G1EAC Charged-Media Electronic Air Cleaner which uses media pads with carbon-graphite center charging screen). So where to buy replacements filter/media? GA1Media-2025 is what I need.

Media for this might be related

Of course, the hvac-talk guru's say to stay away from EAC's when you get to 4-ton (or is that 4-tonnes?) and above. Here is another thread. Maybe I need a way to monitor the (static?) pressure drop. Hmm... I think I'll ask. duct Velocity calculator.

And then there is the possiblity that my ducts are leaking. What do they have to say about that? Related thread.

Wanna startup?

2006-08-29T23:09:00.000-05:00

Types of things that would be worth keeping track of if starting a company:

Different types of companies to start
Startup tools

Business models

And what would be complete without a link to wikipedia?

Or USB info like usbman, or this, or in general, this.

Also interesting is a /. article titled "Ask an Open Source Venture Capitalist", maybe there to counter-act the article on business myths?

And then we have the stuff surrounding the tax consequences of stock options. NCEO has some good paragraphs on the advantages and tax implications of ISOs. In summary, it seems that if you exercise (buy) your shares as soon as the grant is made, the that you have little risk of triggering AMT because the fair market value is about the same as the grant price. If you wait to exercise, then the FMT is likely to be higher and you're at greater risk for triggering AMT unless you sell your shares in the same year, in which case you're now going to be paying short term capital gains. But wait, that's not all! It looks like they still have a way to get you: according to Fairmark, unless you make a Section 83b Election, your reported compensation income goes up by the value of the stock as soon as the later of the following happens (some stock options let you do the above in either order) :

Your shares vest
Your purchase your shares

Whichever one happens last is the date that you effectively got "paid" (in options), and the IRS considers it income. But wait - does this apply to ISO's? Maybe not.

Quiet!

2006-08-25T07:46:00.000-05:00

If you want piece and quiet, Altec Lansing inMotion IEMs are supposedly worth it (made under license from Etymotic Research, which make the REALLY expensive ones). Then there is Shure. More options here.

Mozilla Firefox

2006-08-17T09:22:00.002-05:00

I'm surprised I don't have an entry about Mozilla and/or Firefox. Of course, I'm thinking it is about time to re-try Opera - I've been hearing good things about the latest version.

Mozilla has a new concept called Microsummaries. They are cool, but I want something cooler. I want the button to auto-update without me having to click on it. Hrmm... that statement may not make sense to anyone else but me. Maybe I'll expand on it later.

Seems like they finally got serious about supporting corporate environments... so you can do file: with after installing an extension. Other extensions I use: Gestures (alternate between all-in-one and optimoz... optimoz has gesture exchange), and download manager tweak (which I use ALOT - I'm really surprised that its basic functionality hasn't been integrated into the browser). Others of interest: (VideoDownloader or Media Pirate or UnPlug or Amazing Media Browser or Ook or FVD [fast video download] or Google video downloader). Fasterfox is also tempting to install and try out.

Something I should make more use of is Greasemonkey.

I also use small icons, push my URL and search bar up next to the menu items to gain some vertical space, and drag the redundent throbber off (since each tab already has one). I set a few other things through Tools -> Options...

Lastly, about.config customizations that I like to make it cleaner and faster.

browser.tabs.closeButtons = 0
browser.urlbar.richResults => false
toolkit.scrollbox.smoothScroll => false
browser.tabs.tabMinWidth = 70

Optional to speed up cacheing from /. (along with a discussion about it):

browser.cache.disk.parent_directory with a string value of /dev/shm (automatic ram disk?)

-or the manual way:

mount -t tmpfs -o 'size=100M' tmpfs /path/to/chosen/mountpoint
browser.cache.disk.parent_directory with a string value of /path/to/chosen/mountpoint

Wanna be funny?

2006-08-17T09:12:00.000-05:00

How to be funny and not just stupid would be worth checking out if you want to be funny and not just stupid.

Go

2006-07-13T10:22:00.000-05:00

The following is from aikiweb, and seems to be worth saving on the topic of Go:

For internet play IGS is among the best:: http://www.pandanet.co.jp/English/

Or you could get something like GoWrite2, and just play a good friend by emailing the board back and forth. It works great. :: http://gowrite.net/

As to AI computer-play software someone wrote that they were fond of his old "Cosmos" Go program ca. 1996: low end on graphics but very good for play. The same data engine is in the present day "Many Faces of Go", which is probably the best AI Go program out there.

See here:: http://www.smart-games.com/manyfaces.html

For a list of some available Go software with some reviews:: http://www.britgo.org/gopcres/gopcres1.html
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Go_software
And for others:
http://www.usgo.org/resources/computer.html

Old, supposedly fairly strong one: Many faces of go and a free version of it.
Go Mobile is only $15.
Yeah... there is GNU GO!
Others of interest: here and here which serves .jar's directly to the phone for places like this.

There is also http://playgo.to/interactive/

Computer-go (research) mailing list: http://computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go
The strongest Monte Carlo based program is currently MoGo by Sylvain Gelly et al. which you can find more information about at http://www.lri.fr/~gelly/MoGo.htm

Management, leadership, coordination, and decision making

2006-06-16T13:39:00.000-05:00

Mitchell has some blog postings about decision making that are worth a read. She followed it up with a post that is almost as good about coordination vs. leadership. I'm sure there are LOTS of others.

Like this one on lessons from AT&T.

Politics in the middle

2006-05-31T08:43:00.000-05:00

First, a link to an interesting article on politics and voters.

Now, to the main point: It's finally time to write down something I've been mulling over since around electon time, 2004. A recent discussion with a good friend recently brought some of these things back to the surface.

I suppose I could be mistaken, but I don't think I am. Americans are tired of the insesent bickering (crying?) that makes up our current political system. Politicians spend more time and effort thinking about what it is going to take to get reelected (either themselves, or at a minimum, their party) than reviewing and trimming ammendment laden, pork-filled bills that don't deserve to see the light of day. No-one that I know is happy with how things are: they aren't happy with the people in power, what they are doing, and most of all, how they are doing it. Yet we all just sit around hoping that next election will have better choices and produce better results. But it never does.

Be honest with yourself - were you really happy with your "choices" for President in 2000 and 2004? I sure wasn't. Our whole politicial system is stuck in a catch-22. The vast majority of voters think they are stuck because they think (know?) that everyone else is going to vote either Republican or Democrat. So they might as well vote for one of those to as well, so that they at least influence the outcome of the election rather than "throw away" their vote on a third party candidate that they are pretty certain won't win enough votes to matter. It's a cycle that will only end when there is a viable third choice. Many countries have them - why doesn't the USA? Because everyone thinks we're stuck with not having one. We're waiting for an overwhelming one to appear. It almost did with Ross Perot (not saying he was or was not a good candidate - just that he had very real traction), but he burned his bridge. How long till it happens again?

If there were a third party, and its goal is to pick up as many voters as possible, where would be the natural place for it to fall in the political spectrum? The Democratic party seems far enough to the left that you wouldn't get many voters by going even further left. Same for going to the right of the Republicans. So not only are most people moderates, but a moderate party makes the most sense in the spectrum. Lucky us!

I'm much too humble to believe that I am the first or only person to think of these things, and am certainly not the first one to write about them (here are others thinking [same topic as this link] the same types things, even if I disagree with some of their points or what they put in which categories). But maybe by putting these thoughts down, enough of us will realize that the moderate party already exists - it is us.

I don't know anything about the following groups that might be interested in a central/moderate party, and the views of some groups may be incompatible with others on the list. But that doesn't mean they might not, overall, be closer to the center than to the right or left:

http://www.modparty.net/
http://www.amherst.edu/~pdchapin/amm/index.php
http://americanmoderateparty.blogspot.com/
http://www.centristcoalition.com/ (Has what appears to be an active forum)
http://www.billingsnews.com/story?storyid=17191&issue=262

And lastly, maybe a list of the more moderate candidates from around the nation that might be willing, now or in the future, to become a card carrying member of the moderate party.

Martial info

2006-05-30T09:26:00.000-05:00

There looks to be a large collection of Judo related articles worth reading at this site, including some by Kenji Tomiki.

And where do you get supplies?

http://e-bogu.com
http://judogis.com
http://toraki.com
http://bujindesign.com
http://howardliu.com
http://bogubag.com
http://kodokangear.com
http://karatedepot.com

Private lending

2006-05-19T07:17:00.000-05:00

Would it be worth it financially to get involved with the new "peer-to-peer" lending that is starting to take hold with companies like Prosper and Zopa? Is not knowing the person you are lending money too a good thing, or bad thing?

Investment screening and screening investments

2006-05-15T17:03:00.004-05:00

Would it be worth it to actually pay for some screening software or web sites, or just use free ones like the one from Zacks, Montly Fool, Invested Interests

How about an interesting stragegy on put and call options. I wonder what Suze Orman thinks of them. Funds can be evaluated at fundmojo.

Good articles:

I really can't decide what to think about Kinetics Paradigm (WWNPX).

Autoextremist tally

2006-05-02T21:21:00.000-05:00

I think it would be worth keeping a continously updated blog entry to keep tabs on the "track record" of the auto-industry, as seen and discussed by the rants section of autoextremist.com.

May 2005: GM puts out some pretty aggressive statements saying that their loss of ONLY $946M (for North America market) was a sure sign things are turning around, since they were expecting a loss even larger than that. Somehow it was called, by Rick Wagoner, "an important milestone".

Is Ethanol worth it?

2006-04-26T06:24:00.000-05:00

There appears to be considerable information, both outdated and not, floating around about Ethanol. The WSJ on 28 Mar 2006, pointed out that even the subsidized profits (to midwest farmers and agribusiness giants like ADM) that Congress has created for Ethanol still isn't enough to get production high enough to replace MTBE in time, which is being phased out rapidly due to environmental concerns (and therefore lawsuit concerns)... and as if that weren't enough, Ethanol imports are subject to a 2.5% tariff and a second duty of 54 cents a gallon. So much for free trade.

And all of this ignores the possibility (which is constantly changing since efficiencies are going up) that it takes more energy to create Ethanol than it produces.

Complain to your Republican congressman if you don't like the Ethanol situation we're in... they're the ones that put us here (said as someone who does not typically identify with Democratic side of many things [not that I identify with many Republican side of things any more]).

Update: Discussion about Ethanol on /.

Aiports: to wait, or not

2006-04-25T21:04:00.000-05:00

If you are waiting at an aiport for a layover, would it be worth a few extra dollars at the airport if you could you enjoy:

a shower after a gym workout (at the airport)?
watching a movie in a theater with a fireplace?
indoor (or outdoor?!) play ground for the kids
Or maybe just rent a DVD from a stand?
rocking chairs
live music
wire bars
booties for walking through metal detectors
or shoehorns when you go to put your shoes back on
a place to change your clothes
or simply more hooks and space in a stall in the bathroom
microwave oven
dry cleaners where you can drop off and pick up your clothes (inside or outside the security area though?)
manicure shop
cigar bars or smoking lounges
and of course, free wireless internet

for more ideas, see
http://blogs.usatoday.com/sky/2006/03/what_this_airpo.html#comments

Or....

would you rather not wait at the airport, and take a $700-$1000 air-taxi that carries only half a dozen (or fewer?) people? According to the personal journal section of the WSJ on 28 Mar 2006, NASA says that airports like Las Vegas, Dallas Love, Chicago Midway, and many others will be swamped with 350-400 flights a day of very light jets (VLJs) made by Eclipse Aviation Corp, Adam Aircraft Inc, and Cessna Aircraft flown by carriers like DayJet Corp, Pogo Jet Inc, and Linear Air. Using Pratt & Whitney engines on at least some of their planes, Eclipse already has orders for more than 2300 jets. Airports may raise fees on small jets to encourage them to land elsewhere, but how much would it have to rise?

Mutual conversions

2006-03-24T06:08:00.000-06:00

When a credit union converts to a mutual bank, and then to a public bank, shares are issued. Of course, the SEC gets to have their say, which probably isn't a completely bad thing. Legacy bank corp carried through with plans to go public, and seems to be pleased. Their 10-Q might contain interesting info, although I don't see the thing that interests me the most: exact subscription offering / IPO rules.

wiki's are worth it

2006-03-17T00:10:00.000-06:00

There are so many wiki's, with so many features, it's tough to pick on. But I think I finally did: PmWiki. I know, it comes as a surprise, considering it is one of the most popular one - but that was only the second reason I chose it. The first was that it's design guidelines seem to match with my own: keep it simple, stupid.

Oh, and since it uses php, it'd be worth it to read a book about php.

It sure seems like it would be worth my time, and maybe others, to document what steps are required to pain through getting a wiki up, especially since there do not seem to be any comprehensive instructions. Much of the setup is obvious, but there are a few non-obvious steps (at least for me):

Don't forget to COMMENT OUT the Listen binding so that Apache will listen to all ports
If you want to move a wiki, edit LocalSettings.php and change the $IP environment variable
To enable the mail server, edit the php.ini file in the apache directory. SMTP entries in the hundreds of php.ini don't do anything

Interesting combination of wiki's and Microsoft Sharepoint is here.

Stopping the vehicular

2006-03-13T15:10:00.000-06:00

New brakes are worth it for track events:
Superior Chevrolet has a parts list
Up Front Technologies has the stuff too
then, there's Vette Brakes
among others, I'm sure.

Comparison of energy costs

2006-02-28T07:47:00.000-06:00

When choosing a source for energy, it is worth it to know what the different costs for energy are in 2006, especially after recent changes in natural gas prices:

Type of fuel	Cost per million BTU	Alternate units
Natural Gas	$14.15	$1.415/therm $14.57/MCF
Natural Gas	$14.15	$1.415/therm $14.57/MCF
No. 2 Heating Oil	$16.37	$2.27/gallon
Propane	$21.35	$1.95/gallon
Kerosene	$20.30	$2.74/gallon
Electricity	$28.75	$0.0981/kWh

\1\ Btu stands for British thermal units.
\2\ kWh stands for kilowatt hour.
\3\ 1 kWh = 3,412 Btu.
\4\ 1 therm = 100,000 Btu. Natural gas prices include taxes.
\5\ MCF stands for 1,000 cubic feet.
\6\ For the purposes of this table, one cubic foot of natural gas has an energy equivalence of 1,031 Btu.
\7\ For the purposes of this table, one gallon of No. 2 heating oil has an energy equivalence of 138,690 Btu.
\8\ For the purposes of this table, one gallon of liquid propane has an energy equivalence of 91,333 Btu.
\9\ For the purposes of this table, one gallon of kerosene has an energy equivalence of 135,000 Btu.

Source: Federal Register Online via GPO Access [DOCID:fr27fe06-40]

Tracking bugs

2006-01-24T07:11:00.003-06:00

/. When working on small projects, or if the software needs to run on windows for some reason, it appears to be worth using a smaller bug tracking system than bugzilla. While on the topic of development stuff, subversion appears to be the version control system of choice now-a-days. Search on /. for numerous discussions. Having said that, get-svn or Mercurial supposedly make svn much more tolerable. A lot of people say svn isn't worth it ... you can't do enough to CVS to make it good. Git was Linus' answer. Discussion. And comparisons. And more discussion. And comparisons.

Watch out for rebate centers screwing you

2006-01-23T16:38:00.000-06:00

So in February 2005, I decide it is worth it to buy some expensive phones for the wife-unit and I since there are enough rebates to make the phones free. After getting them, we see all the conditions that go along with the Inphonic rebates and dutifully note the 1 month window, six months after activation. We submit four rebates for my two cell phones in the summer of 2005, paying careful attention to dot all the i's and cross all the t's, making sure to mail the rebate in no earlier than 180 days and no later than 210 days after service activation. Each envelope had identical contents, with the minor exception that two had one type of rebate form, and two had a different type. All forms were mailed out the same day, and I'm certain that all were received by them within a day or so. How can I know? Because I received four confirmation emails, one dated Nov 1st, two dated Nov 2nd, and one dated Nov 3rd.

Included in the confirmation email was a web link to check online status of the rebate. Every two or three weeks, I checked the online status of the first one, the second one, and the fourth one. I left the third one marked as new so it would be easier to find the confirmation emails. On Jan 11th, I get a status email saying that they are processing three checks for me. Three?! Guess which one they claim had a late post mark? That's right - it just happens to be the one I never checked the status on. What are the chances of that? I try to avoid conspiracy theories whenever possible, instead assuming that the most obvious answer is the most likely one (Occam's Razor) - so I'm willing to assume that someone fat-fingered something. But after looking into this and seeing all the trouble that has been reported about Inphonic, am I being too generous? Is it possible they monitor to see which rebates have the status checked on, and then intentionally fat-finger the post mark date, hoping you won't notice until it is too late (or you give up in disgust)? Is it safe to assume they have not thrown away the proof (the envelope) six months later?

Awesome way to do a FAQ (cingular, in this case)

2006-01-23T12:18:00.000-06:00

It would be worth it to put all FAQ's on something like this. Well, assuming that you can trust that others won't sabotage it.

Marking your ground (before digging it)

2006-01-20T10:49:00.000-06:00

Here is something worth knowing: they are working up an "811" number that is a one-stop-call to do before digging. Utilities should contact you and/or mark your ground as follows:

Yellow: Gas, oil, steam, petroleum, or gaseous materials
Orange: Communication, alarm, or signal lines, cables, or conduit
Blue: Potable water
Purple: Reclaimed water, irrigation and slurry lines
Green: Sewers and drain lines
White: Proposed excavation
Pink: Temporary survey markings

Wireless stuff

2006-01-18T13:39:00.000-06:00

I wonder if it would be worth-it to buy an RFID reader to verify that Chase didn't do anything silly in their implementation of their "blink" credit card. You know, something like putting even an encrypted copy of a social security number, birth date, or mothers maiden name on the card. Speaking of silly implementations of RFID, Wired has an article.

Speaking of verifing things - if you are paranoid about surveillance bugs, it looks like you can buy something from TSCM to let you know if you get too close to one. Or you can buy a scanner and put a specific sequence into it.

On the topic of wireless interference, microwaves severely impact the 2.4GHz spectrum: Channel 6 (4-8) is absolutely murdered, half of channel 11 (9-13) is murdered, and the edge of channel 1 is severely degraded. 5GHz is much, much cleaner - at least until some brilliant microwave vendor invents a unit that operates at that frequency.

Someday when I move out to the country, I may need to find a way to get better Internet access than what is typically available in the area. Solutions abound.

The ultimate brake fluid comparison chart

2006-01-09T08:28:00.000-06:00

Many years ago, in a land far away, I created one of the early brake fluid comparison charts that ended up floating around around the internet for a while. It has recently been replaced with a updated chart, which I will attempt to keep updated even further:

DRY:401F -- WET:284F --- DOT3 MINIMUM (GLYCOL BASE)
DRY:446F -- WET:311F --- DOT4 MINIMUM (GLYCOL BASE)
DRY:500F -- WET:356F --- DOT5 MINIMUM (SILICONE BASE)
DRY:500F -- WET:356F --- DOT5.1 MINIMUM (GLYCOL BASE)
DRY:527F -- WET:302F --- AP RACING 551 ($12.95/0.5L OR 16.9 OZ)
DRY:527F -- WET:347F --- VALVOLINE SYNPOWER DOT3 & DOT4
DRY:536F -- WET:392F --- ATE SUPERBLUE/TYP200 ($9.95/1L)
DRY:543F -- WET:349F --- Endless The truth DOT 4 ($35/1L)
DRY:550F -- WET:284F --- PERFORMANCE Friction Z rated ($6.27/16 OZ)
DRY:550F -- WET:284F --- FORD HEAVY DUTY DOT 3 ($4/12 OZ)
DRY:570F -- WET:284F --- WILWOOD 570 ($5.65/12 OZ)
DRY:572F -- WET:284F --- US Brake/AFCO Racing 570 Gold
DRY:572F -- WET:421F --- US Brake/AFCO Racing Ultra HTX
DRY:577F -- WET:300F --- Brake Man
DRY:585F -- WET:421F --- Earl's Hypertemp 421
DRY:590F -- WET:410F --- AP RACING Super 600 ($16.95/0.5L OR 16.9 OZ)
DRY:593F -- WET:420F --- MOTUL RBF600 ($12.95/0.5L OR 16.9 OZ)
DRY:590F -- WET:518F --- CASTROL SRF ($69.00/1L 0R 33.8 OZ)
DRY:601F -- WET:399F --- BREMBO LCF 600 PLUS ($26.75/0.5L OR 16.9 OZ)
DRY:610F -- WET:421F --- NEO SYNTHETICS SUPER DOT 610($11.95/12 OZ)
DRY:610F -- WET:421F --- PROSPEED GS610 ($39.95/16 OZ)
DRY:617F -- WET:413F --- Endless RF-450 ($45/1L)
DRY:620F -- WET:425F --- COBALT SUPER XRF [seem to no longer be available]
DRY:622F -- WET:424F --- Endless RF-650
DRY:626F -- WET:417F --- WILWOOD EXP 600 ($16.95/0.5L 16.9 OZ)
Arranged by wet boiling point:

DRY:401F -- WET:284F --- DOT3 MINIMUM
DRY:550F -- WET:284F --- PERFORMANCE Friction Z rated
DRY:550F -- WET:284F --- FORD HEAVY DUTY DOT 3
DRY:570F -- WET:284F --- WILWOOD 570
DRY:572F -- WET:284F --- US Brake / AFCO Racing 570 Gold
DRY:577F -- WET:300F --- Brake Man
DRY:527F -- WET:302F --- AP RACING 551
DRY:446F -- WET:311F --- DOT4 MINIMUM
DRY:527F -- WET:347F --- VALVOLINE SYNPOWER DOT3 & DOT4
DRY:543F -- WET:349F --- Endless The truth DOT 4
DRY:500F -- WET:356F --- DOT5.1 MINIMUM (GLYCOL BASE)
DRY:500F -- WET:356F --- DOT5 MINIMUM (SILICONE BASE)
DRY:536F -- WET:392F --- ATE SUPERBLUE/TYP200
DRY:601F -- WET:399F --- BREMBO LCF 600 PLUS
DRY:590F -- WET:410F --- AP RACING Super 600
DRY:617F -- WET:413F --- Endless RF-450
DRY:626F -- WET:417F --- WILWOOD EXP 600
DRY:572F -- WET:421F --- US Brake/AFCO Racing Ultra HTX
DRY:585F -- WET:421F --- Earl's Hypertemp 421
DRY:593F -- WET:420F --- MOTUL RBF600
DRY:610F -- WET:421F --- NEO SYNTHETICS SUPER DOT 610
DRY:610F -- WET:421F --- PROSPEED GS610
DRY:622F -- WET:424F --- Endless RF-650
DRY:620F -- WET:425F --- COBALT SUPER XRF [seem to no longer be available]
DRY:590F -- WET:518F --- CASTROL SRF

How to choose a DVD writer

2005-12-29T12:44:00.003-06:00

/. has a pointer to a good review of DVD hardware, where they actually attempt to analyze the quality data written. It seems like it might be worth using a good writer if you want your data to last more than a few years, or be readable on a different brand drive. For those that don't know, bit-setting is of interest to you.

I ended up buying a LITE ON (or is it LITEON) SHM-165H6S with Lightscribe.

Update: I guess I need a second DVD drive, now a few years later. Asus rebrands Pioneer, and they seem to have a corner on the low-noise / low-cost / good quality. DRW-1814BL gets good reviews.

Next up is a blu-ray drive - either reader or maybe reader/writer. Reviews at CDRinfo.

Monitoring the monitoring

2005-12-29T09:09:00.001-06:00

Wired has an interesting article on monitoring closed-circuit surveillance cameras, where it is pointed out that "searching for special strings in Google, such as axis-cgi/, will return links that access internet-connected cameras around the world. Quintessenz developers entered these Google results into a database, analyzed the IP addresses and set up a website that gives users the ability to search by country or topic -- and then rate the cameras." Other strings are mentioned in this /. article.

Examples of search strings:

inurl:"axis-cgi/mjpg"
inurl:"ViewerFrame?Mode="
inurl:"view/index.shtml"
inurl:"MultiCameraFrame?Mode="
intitle:"Biromsoft WebCam" -4.0 -serial -ask -crack -software -a -the -build -download -v4 -3.01 -numrange:1-10000

You learn something new every day... there is such a thing as a video scanner: Icom IC-R3. It'd be worth it to have one of those.

People have gotten pretty inventive coming up with ways to non-destructively (temporarily) neutralize cameras:

Ballons
Plastic bags
Tape
Power
Paint or Paint balls
Laser pointers, possibly mounted on scopes or handheld mono/binoculars

Thought experiment: come up with a way to counter-act each of these neutralization methods.

On the automobile front, here is some info on the black boxes that are in (very) late 1990's and up GM vehicles. If that web page goes away, there are pdf versions. The "EDRU" is what collects the data.

Updated: Wired appears to be doing a good job of covering EFF's lawsuit against AT&T (and the government?) on the secret telephone spying. So far, AT&T is losing.

Update2: Well, AT&T wasn't doing well until the government steps in and invokes "States Secrets". Also, Bruce Schneier has interesting comments on this and other topics (as usual). Quite some time later: still dragging their feet, and starting to expose FBI abuses.

Update3: /. has a very interesting discussion on the upside and downsides of privacy. Here's another discussion on the "Nothing to Hide" argument.

Do we REALLY need yet another government run database that is bound to be difficult to correct?

Update4: /. has another very interesting discussion on what is allowed and not - and how that might differ from what the police want to think is allowed, or not.

Or maybe you need to just record everyone around you says, like this guys father did. Of course, beware of doing that, least you be charged with all types of silly offenses. At least after the media got involved, they were dropped.

Update 5: Interesting, and very logical, idea on how to determine if a digital picture has been altered: Neal Krawetz of hackerfactor presented "JPEGana" at Blackhat.

Update 6: Source Watch appears to be attempting to monitor the monitors - possibly to the extreme

HD solutions and nonsense

2005-12-07T06:03:00.004-06:00

/. has had quite a number of articles on HDTV's.

Most recently, it discussed a DIY projector, not to be confused with previous discussions on DIY LCD projectors. Some (most?) of these DIY sites require a small donation to register, which these guys claim is worth it.

Some include useful things like making sure to get something with modern HDTV inputs (HDMI) and reminding people to include the possibility of a CRT HDTV, although size and weight start becoming problems for a decent sized screen.

Other hints for a good video system are here.

AACS appears to be cracked REAL good:

On another front, Samsung appears to have outstanding LCD panels right now. Sharp (Aquos) also has some good response times. Sony is known to buy at least some of their panels from others, including Samsung, but is still known for good sets (Sony Bravia). Some guidelines to investigate:

Look at 120 Hz. 120 is divisible by 24 fps and 30 fps. Google "3:2 pulldown" for more info.
The quality of the scaler is important for non-HD broadcasts. Ask the rep to switch to a non-HD channel.
Google Faroudja DCDi.
Skin-tone really matters, avoid evaluating sets when animated films are playing. Take a DVD or two.
You'll always need more HDMI ports than you think, shoot for at least 3.
Pay close attention to viewing distance and recommended set size, as in most cases you'll need a bigger set than you think (unless room aesthetics are an issue).
Beyond my pay grade, but at least at one point NuVision appears to have had outstanding stuff.

Other comparisons at Cnet (1, 2),

Update: Samsung LN46A650 and the A750 appear to be top-of-the-line models for reasonable prices. Maybe they don't even need to be calibrated. Might be able to calibrate some sets myself (using controlcal, an eyeone, and a null modem cable).

PVR's

2005-10-11T23:11:00.000-05:00

/. is pointing to yet another review on PC based PVR's. But this one seems worth reading - or I should say, the comments seem to be better. By better, I mean that the comments contain a good deal of personal experience data on the pro's and con's of various programs. Eventually Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 is one of the best solutions in terms of stability and ease of use, and has a respectable set of features. I don't know if Microsoft bought it or developed it themselves, but if they did do it on their own - just goes to show that Microsoft can actually do something and do it well. Or at least, pretty well. There are a few comments about how it's a resource hog - but who really knows what that means any more with the wide variety of machine configurations? Just have to find drivers that block or don't pass on the flag to prevent digital duplication.

ReplayTV and MythTV received LOTS of positive comments too, especially in the feature department. They are getting more stable as time goes on, and installation is getting better. But what's a little up-front pain anyway? SageTV may be up there close to the top. BeyondTV didn't receive many comments, but had scores close to SageTV. GB-PVR has a number of followers as well, and seems to include MediaMVP which makes it super easy to have the PVR PC in another room, although I've seen a fair number of comments about Myth being able to do that as well Mythdora and knoppmyth also get mentioned some, although I also may have seen mentions that they aren't as up-to-date and, although Myth is so complex that it is difficult to install, knopp has other problems that frustrate people enough that they just switch to MythTV. Here is a link to two more comparisons (looks like knoppmyth isn't the way to go). And another comparison, where Knoppmyth users take the reviewer to task. MythDora wins again. One comments suggestions problem free installation with ubuntu + mythtv. Other links/comparisons are here and of course, /. And to complete the discussion, don't ignore the possiblity of XBMC - which seems to prefer ubuntu as well.

HDTV support appears to be possible if the correct components are chosen ahead of time - especially if you have a good video card that will offload the decompression of H.264/MPEG-4/AVC. There is a review discussing such things here.

Updated: The PVRblog looks to have good info as well. And of course, /. has yet another (monthly?) story on it.

Updated2: Wired has an article with a few names I've not seen before.

Updated3: Interesting quote about how rabid TiVo fans are: Go to an online TiVo forum and ask about feeding your TiVo listings from XMLTV rather than subscribing. Bask in the hostility. Here's a hint: google for "oztivo", "tivocanada", and "service emulator". Learn perl. Then lament the fact that you'd be sued and lynched if you ever told anyone how you did it.

Updated4: Here is the latest on /., this time about MythDora, plus lots of associated comments. How did I miss this (BYOPVR: Build your own PVR) previously? About.com has a decent summary as well, and floopyhead has some insight and links. And the latest again on /.
Another decent "summary of equipment" site is Linuxis.

There are also several forums for home theater PC / PVR / DVR.
#1 (hardforum.com),
#2 (2cpu),
#3 (doom9.org) & here
#4 diy-pvr-dvr-htpc wiki
#5 mysettopbox.tv
#6 htpcnews
#7 Highdef forum

Lists/writeups of media-pc's, media streamers, players, and set-top boxes.

And forums for just certain brands of DVR's / media boxes:

Example builds: #1

Update 5: Beware of HDCP support problems. Here is a certified list for video cards. Wonder how motherboards fair? Answer: not well yet. There are about a dozen boards, and none of them are likely to be supported by Linux/MythTV anytime soon. So what will be supported by Myth?

Unichrome by Via (but maybe not the Unichrome Pro?)
VIA CX700M2 with the VT3157 chipset (but it uses Unichrome Pro!?&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;&!). This hardware supports everything, but the Xv drivers which use the Unichrome Pro drivers do not support any acceleration. Well, maybe the most current ones do? It is quite confusing, actually. Regardless, Via's documentation seems to say that it'll do 1080i MPEG2, but I'm guessing 1080p MPEG4 is probably "right out". Maybe I'm aiming too high, again.
Or just do it via software. XvMC (possibly using -vo xvmc:bobdeint:queue -vc ffmpeg12mc).
Some people have done some reverse engineering on the Apple front.
Alan Nisota's directshow patches for CoreAVC port to Linux

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/dev/197462?do=post_view_threaded

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=83594&page=4

On the dedicated chipset front, Sigma has some very interesting offerings:

The EM8620L does not support VC-1 and H.264.
The EM8622L/24L/28L (single chip solutions) do. 24L has 10/100 Ethernet, as does the 28L. 24L has a graphics input port also. Supposedly handles 40 Mbps (which should be enough??? HD-DVD is limited to around 30 Mbps?)
Add one to each of those numbers for a non-macrovision version... EM8625L or EM8629L
SMP8630 series (SMP8634 and SMP8635) have HDMI output and other stuff to help support Blu-ray and HD-DVD. Supposedly handles 300 Mbps? Has a 300 MIPS CPU with 3.2 GB/sec unified memory controller, dual USB 2.0, IDE controller, 10/100 Ethernet MAC,

At one point, an SDK was available. These chips are available in the following boxes:

Teac HDRM7250 PVR (has an SMP8635LF)
Celrun 900H (with "Windeo" UWB chipset)
TRZ-8300 (SMP8634LF) - see directfb mailing list for email contact with good english (using uClibc)
X300T (SMP8634LF) - supposedly rebranded KiSS from Cisco/Linksys. See this.
TVIX M6000 (SMP8634)
Blu-ray disc players with SMP8634's: Panasonic DMP BD10, Pioneer BDP HD1, Sony BDP-S1, BDZ-V9, and BDZ-V7
limHD200i (EM8623) - h.264 playback confirmed
Evesham Technology's iplayer (same - no 1080p)
DSM-520 (EM862x?)
TVIX HDM5000U (EM8621) - 1080i/720p
KiSS (by way of http://threebit.net/mail-archive/mythtv-users/msg00256.html) (EM8620)
Gctglobal/Allwell EM6821 PCI card (gctglobal)

Then we have stuff from Broadcom and ST:

STI7100/STB7100 (300MHz ST40 core, a venerable 32-bit SuperH processor) - might not do 1080p? Also looks like it has an ST231 core.

Of course, some of these device may not have enough resources to run MythTV... for example this supposedly don't support Myth. Other discussion.

Forum user links: kjack and tom Someday soon I need to divy this info up into sections. Cases are a whole 'nother thing, get those from Thermaltake, or maybe from this list - and make sure the power supply can handle... oh.... 30 or so Amps of 12V!