news from a well travelled geek » open source

[NSFW] a good shirt for linux

sboss — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:31:23 +0000

every now and then you see a picture that is worth not a 1,000 words but 2-3,000. And sometimes you just see a cool ass picture.

VIM & Perl tidbit

sboss — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 04:26:57 +0000

All of us can use tidbits of knowledge or help every now and then.

For all of use that use PERL a lot (which is me!), then any tidbit of help we can get is great!. From this article, we get the tidbit below.

If you’re primarily a Perl hacker and don’t use C much, you might find it annoying when you hit ‘K’ in command mode. That’s because VIM runs something like this:

    nmap K :Map

I’ve just added the following to my .vimrc:

    noremap K :!perldoc   perldoc -f

Now when you type ‘K’ in command mode, it will call up the appropriate perldoc, if possible.

OpenOffice goes Native on Mac

sboss — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:59:09 +0000

The OpenOffice folks just announced that in OOv3 they will got native on the Mac platform.

here are some links about going native.

winandmac.com
digg

here is the v3.0 release schedule.

Mac and VIM

sboss — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 10:18:35 +0000

the Mac has always had a command line version if vi(m). But now it has a gui version (like Windows does).

MacVIM is it. I am using it now, and WOW! I am soo glad it is here.

here is the screenshot from the homepage (and NO it is not mine!)

Writer’s Tools

sboss — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 02:05:32 +0000

Dmitri Popov from Tumbling Writer has written a nice plugin/extention for OpenOffice.

Download the latest plugin. It works on Mac, and Windows (and who knows what other platforms).

SCO sucks

sboss — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 10:55:27 +0000

SCO never owned UNIX… hmmm…

Accorting to many articles, SCO never own the UNIX copyrights. So they owe Novell a lot of cash. And I mean a lot. SCO’s stock took a 70% dive immediately. Deserves them right! Down with SCO!

virtual-TiVO lives

sboss — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 21:21:02 +0000

well I started thursday (the day before my birthday) night building the virtual-TiVO box. Well I started again.

Well I built a ubuntu edgy (aka v6.10) server on my AMD64 dual core with 2GB of RAM. I only have a 200GB drive in the machine. And you are thinking that 200GB is lot but it is nothing for a TiVO like machine. I went with MythTV to start out with. If it doesnt work for me I can always switch to SageTV. The one issue with SageTV is that it is mainly a Windows DVR/PVR that has a linux port. Ok that is not all bad but the HDHomeRun I have is not supported by SageTV except with a hack for the Windows (only) version. And I am not going to run windows as my O/S for my DVR/PVR.

So I have heard horror stories on the net and from coworkers/friends about MythTV and I should go with something like SageTV. One friend (Jody) has built a very similar machine (I let him do the research and I reaped the benefits). He got his working fine. I am not there but close.

It took me two installs to get unbuntu/mythtv installed correctly. It would have been only one if I followed the instructions and not did things out of order. My bad. Well I was not working anyways and it was fun.

After I got MythTV installed and configured (which wasnt that long maybe an hour). I had it working. My channels dony match up with the real channels. So I will have to go edit the channel listings to match the real channel with the channel on the MythTV. I live in an old ATTBI (AT&T Broadband/cable) network that comcast owns so my channels dont quite match up to normal comcast. So I have to manual swap things around.

Once I get that done, I should be able to start watching TV/recording things.

Then I need to work on making it a DVD player (I have the mythtv plug installed just not configured), play movies that are loaded on the HD (like .mp4 or .divx files), clean up the web interface to it, see whatever other plugins are for myth, etc. Oh yeah get the NetFlix plugin to work. I have it loaded but it wont take my username/password. I get a 501 error code. Hmmm strange. I will need to see what is going on with that.

I also need to find a good theme for widescreen (16:9) since I have this hooked up to my HD-LCD-TV (46inch Sharp Aquos). the current one works but is not that appeasing.

more to come soon….

And if you are counting thursday to now, It has not been nonstop. yesterday I had to do errands and drink beer for the birthday. And today I have done very little so far. tonight when I get home from the parents I will do more.

damn this virtual-TiVO box!

sboss — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 06:02:14 +0000

I am building a Virtual-TiVO box. Ok it is a MythTV box but you get my drift.

Well I ordered my parts for my new PVR/DVR box. I was assembling them tonight and damn it! it is not working. I turn the computer on and the fans come on for a total of about 1 second. then turn off. OK one of a few things is happening. One my BIOS is not up to date enough to support my CPU. according to their site the current revision is 0705 and and my cpu was supported since 03303 (or something like that). Some probably that is not my problem. next is the fans
are tripping a heat sensor or the MoBo is too warm. Well since I had a fan on it (and the house was cold to begin with) that is not an issue. Maybe the one of the fans is tripping a sensor or short circuiting something. thirdly is the power supply is not enough power. I have a 430w PS and my friends that do this stuff all the time say I need to be north of 500w PS. preferably north of 600. Damn it! I remember when 250 and 300w were HUGE. Now a 430w is not enough
for a very simple machine? damn it damn it damn it!

time to get a new power supply…

ordered the parts

sboss — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 22:19:34 +0000

I just ordered the parts last night for my new MythTV box.

NewEgg is the place to buy computer parts from. If you are just buying one part they might not be the cheapest but if you are buying a bunch (like a MotherBoard, case, HD, DVD Burner, PS, Memory, a TV Tuner card & a processor) then overall they will be cheaper. Plus they are very reliable and the parts are great!

9thTee is where I bought my HD tuner from. I got the HD HomeRun.

so once the parts get in I get to load Linux and MythTV and start the hacking on it.

what fun…