Wednesday, 30 September 2009

[Solved] Wi-Fi Extender

Some time ago I set up the laptop in the study, but wireless reception was intermittent and the signal strength was weak.
At first I looked at software issues - updating drivers helped get a more accurate bar read - but the problem was the signal strength.

Then I looked at technical solutions - new wireless routers, extra antennae, signal boosters.  I also looked at ethernet over powerline solutions.

Finally, after much exploration, I settled on a home-made solution: I cut an empty Pringles can in half and placed this around the router antenna.

Problem solved!

Further Info:
[Unsolved] Connect Mini HTPC to TV
http://www.usbwifi.orconhosting.net.nz/

Wednesday, 9 September 2009

Easter Egg Meme

Many years ago I placed this video inside a profitability reporting spreadsheet I set up. Whenever we made more than $100k in a day, this would pop up and play.


   

Only now, with the series of tubes, could I find it again, and also give due credit to the creators:

 

Flat Eric for President!

Friday, 7 August 2009

Who said...

"WORST ... RESCUE ... EVER!!!"

"So whether you agree with me or not, GET ME AUTHORIZED!"

"Pilot, identify yourself."
"It's me!"

"What's it thinking, Colonel?"
"It's afraid!"

"I was invincible in Chinatown!"

"I used to carry around those awful mace things. Now... I zap any bastard that screws with me. I tried it on my little dog. Poor thing limped for a week."

"I really will slug you so hard!"
"Oh it's the 'meek'! 'Blessed are the meek.' Oh that's nice, isn't it?"

"How was your lamb?"
"Skewered."

"Can we have it back?"

"Well, I have the only seat belt here. You know, safety first?"

"For if knowledge is power then a god ... AM ... I!
Was that over the top? I can never tell."

"1.21 GIGAWATTS?!!"

"I just got one question for you. How can you leave me in the middle of a gunfight... to get the car?"
"You have got to shut up and let him drive!"

"There's a difference between disliking him... and not caring when some dumb Irish flat foot drops him out a window."

"Yeah sure. He's probably blond with big dimples"
"How did you know that, sarge?"

"Hey, don't talk like that about pigs! They're usually much nicer than people."
...
"As a matter of fact, right now I have one in my kitchen that's very clean and smells very nice."
...
"Piggy? Piggy? Where are you? Ah! There you are!"

"You get the headaches? ... I get such bad headaches."

"Because of the tension."
"What tension?"

Saturday, 13 June 2009

[UNSOLVED] Connect Mini HTPC to TV

Background
Display1: Wall-mounted Samsung LA32R71WDX (1080i via HDMI)
Display2: Panasonic PT-AX100 (720p via HDMI)
Source: Mini HTPC running XBMC on Ubuntu Jaunty (DVI)

Problem
In-wall cabling to Display1 = RF Coax WTF??

Solutions
RF Modulator

  • A$40
  • 576i
  • Resolution sucks

Attach Mini HTPC onto back of TV

  • $42+shipping
  • 1080i
  • Can’t use HTPC for Display2

Wireless AV Sender

  • A$89+shipping
  • 576i
  • Can link other displays
  • Resolution sucks

Get electrician to install HDMI cable

  • A$59+labour
  • 1080i
  • Capital improvement

HDMI over Powerline (Acoustic Research HDP100)

  • US$272+shipping
  • 1080i
  • Elegant but expensive
  • Wrong voltage

Wireless Media Extender (Zyxel DMA100P)

  • A$386+shipping
  • 1080i Elegant (powerline)
  • Proprietary interface (c.f. HTPC)
  • Good but limited codec support

HDMI over IP (Just Add Power IP HDMI) +
Ethernet over Powerline (TP-Link TL-PA201)

  • US$450+shipping
  • A$166+shipping
  • 1080i
  • Not elegant, but provides wider options
  • Wrong voltage
  • Possibly won’t work
  • Expensive
  • Low WAF

Wireless HDMI Extender (Atlona AT-WHD200)

  • US$600+shipping
  • 1080i
  • Elegant but expensive
  • Wrong voltage

Wireless DLNA TV (Samsung LA32B650)

  • A$1,494
  • 1080p?
  • Display1 can become Display3
  • Fiddly, unproven with Ubuntu

Wireless HD TV (Sony KDL40EX1)

  • A$4,295
  • 1080p
  • Very elegant and expensive
  • Display1 can become Display3
  • Matches the room (white)

Thursday, 21 May 2009

Tuesday, 5 May 2009

No One Thinks Disco of You

That was then:



This is now:




(Disclaimer: Made by - and featuring - some good friends).

Wednesday, 29 April 2009

Baby News

AOpen DE945CD purchased 2nd hand on ebay to be used as the media centre in Lorne.

  • 166(W) x 48(H) x 157(D)mm
  • T5600 Intel Core 2 Duo 1.86GHz CPU
  • 2GB RAM
  • 120GB/5400 HDD
Running Ubuntu 9.04 and boxee.

Further Info:
RKHTPC

Sunday, 22 March 2009

Monday, 9 March 2009

Desktop Mock-up (first try)

  • Taskbar and windows are transparent but not shiny (darker things use less power!) over a naturey background.
  • Windows have the usual close, maximise and minimise buttons as well as "left half" and "right half" screens (i.e. to replicate Snap from Windows 7)
  • We only use the desktop for some basic productivity functions, web surfing, listening to music and maybe watching some movies.

Credits:
http://www.ubuntu.com/
http://www.deshow.net/flowers/bamboo-pictures-454.html#pic
http://www.iconfinder.com/search/?q=iconset:futurosoft_icons
http://mostlysid.com/google-chrome-for-mac-is-now-available
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IEC5010_On_Off_Symbol.svg
http://www.aeonproject.com/
http://www.zim.ly/
http://www.iconspedia.com/icon/usb-drive-1572.html

Monday, 23 February 2009

Have you ever wondered...

I was thinking about an economics syllabus for "average" school students, because I've done ones for top students and for uni students several times.

I haven't worked out the answers but I was thinking of just asking the following questions:
  1. Why is this year's TV bigger, better and cheaper than last year's?
  2. Why is food cheaper in Asia?
  3. Why is Bill Gates the world's richest man?
  4. Who pays for pollution?
  5. How much is information worth?

Further Info:
There's No Such Thing as a Free Market
Sad Guys on Trading Floors
"How Many Currencies?" by Paul Krugman, The New York Times, 23 Feb 2010
Balassa-Samuelson Effect
"Copyright laws threaten our online freedom" by Christian Engstrom, FT.Com, 7 July 2009

Tuesday, 20 January 2009

Who said...

"I think you've been down here too long."

"Why do you have to label people? I hate labels."

"Give me the whip!"
"Throw me the idol!"

"What do you mean, 'I'm funny'? ... You mean the way I talk?"

"I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me."

"What was the middle bit?"

"I didn't"
"No. No. You ate yours."

"'Deserve's' got nothing to do with it."

"Where you at, Desmondo?"

"I'll just walk around some more and see if I can get into a pick-up meeting."

"" (hint: Buffy)

"Get some rest, Pam. You look tired."

"Pop quiz, hotshots!"

"You never really know someone... until you fight them."

"And the eye-in-the-sky is watching us all."

"Blink and you're dead!"

"And for what? For a little bit of money."

"Do you think we need one more?... You think we need one more... All right. We'll get one more."

Thursday, 25 December 2008

Knowing the Path

Often the question I get asked is really just asking, "What do I say next to win the debate."

To date my answer has been along the lines of, "There is no spoon", an answer calculated to infuriate Orlando, but really directed towards rejecting the premise of the question in the hope of providing a purpose at the same time as providing a tool.

What do we mean by "winning"? Is it the journey? Will we only know once we get there? (In which case, yes, it's the journey thing).

Further Info:
"Eight ways to get exactly what you want" by Dan Jones and Alison Motluk, NewScientist, Issue 2655, 7 May 2008
"Digital billboards get a little creepier" by Alana Semuels, LA Times, 27 October 2008
"More Reflections on Bobby Fischer" by Patrick J Lyons, The New York Times, 18 January 2008
"The Behavioral Revolution" by David Brooks, NYtimes.com, 27 October 2008

Wednesday, 10 December 2008

[Solved] Ubuntu HDMI Audio (GeForce 8200)

After a LiveCD install of Intrepid there's no sound! Sigh... Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get a terminal.

Step 1 - Kill Pulse Audio & Install ALSA
Install the following packages:

% sudo apt-get install alsa-oss
% sudo apt-get install libasound2
% sudo apt-get install libasound2-plugins
% sudo apt-get install sysv-rc-conf


Move Pulse Audio (to the home folder) and then turn it off:

% sudo mv /etc/Xll/Xsession.d/70pulseaudio ~/
% gconftool-2 -s -t bool /apps/gnome_settings_daemon/plugins/sound/active
% asoundconf unset-pulseadio

Remove Pulse Audio from runlevel:

% sudo sysv-rc-conf
(page down until you find "pulseaudio" then uncheck all the boxes, save and exit)

Configure ALSA to use your sound card:

% asoundconf list
Names of available sound cards:
[card name]
% asoundconf set-default-card [card name]

And ensure that libao.conf is using ALSA:

% sudo nano /etc/liabo.conf
default_driver=alsa


Step 2 - Install nVidia & ALSA Drivers
First, kill the GUI (you can restart it using gdm):

% sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

Uninstall the proprietary drivers if you installed them (Ubuntu will probably recommend you get proprietary driver version 173 or 177 when you first install).

% sudo apt-get remove nvidia-glx

Now download the latest nVidia drivers from here (I'm using Linux IA32 version 177.82) and install:

% sudo sh [NVIDIA-Linux-x86-177.82.pkg1.run]
(Follow the prompts... Yes, Agree, OK, Next, Yes)

Reboot the computer and download the latest ALSA drivers from here (I'm using "alsa-driver-1.0.18a.tar.bz2"). You'll then need to decompress the file, go to the directory it creates and install:

% bunzip2 -c [alsa-driver-1.0.18a.tar.bz2]
% cd [~/directory name]
% ./configure
% make
% sudo make install


Reboot the computer again, then see what you have:

% aplay -l

Hopefully you have a device with "HDMI" in it. If not, try looking here.

Now navigate to System->Preferences->Sound and turn everything from "auto-detect" to the HDMI device (and disable ESD if it is enabled).

Open up the volume control (double click on the speaker icon or gnome-volume-control) and change "Device" to the HDMI device.

Then select "Preferences" and check anything with "IEC958" in it (also, in "Playback" make sure the IEC958 device is not muted!)

Further info:
RKHTPC

Saturday, 1 November 2008

RKHTPC

Origen AE S16V Enclosure
Corsair 520W Modular PSU
Zalman CNPS7500AlCu Cooler

nVidia 780a Chipset
AMD Phenom 9750 2.4GHz Quad Core
Integrated GeForce 8200 HDMI/VGA -> Sony Bravia 42XBR

2x2GB DDR2 SDRAM
64GB SSD
2x1TB HDD

Pioneer BD-202 Blu-ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer
Wireless-G 802.11b/g PCI 54Mbps
Media Center Remote

Further info:

Thursday, 30 October 2008

Wasssuuuuppp

Then...


...and now