Mythtv Awesomeness

So, quite a bit has happened, inspired by mythtv podcast post.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1118209
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/iPodVideoEncoding

Video podcast client Miro works really well

http://www.getmiro.com/

TVersity is a upnp media server that will pull in content from an RSS feed, such as the one on my MythTV box… This enables playback on the Xbox 360

http://tversity.com/

Of course, this is the reason for the Apache2 bandwidth control post, since I am not very happy with the bandwidth shaping options in pfsense

http://www.pfsense.com/

I suspect a firewall upgrade is in order… My friend just raves about Untangle, and for good reason. The latest version now includes captive portal, and I will not have a network without multiple separated interfaces… Perhaps soon.

http://www.untangle.com/

Fruit Salad?

While Apples aren’t my favorite fruit, they are pretty easy to manage… Here’s a few tools I use.

I have a G5 on my desk, but I dislike having multiple keyboards and mice, so I use Synergy

Apache 2 bandwidth control

So,  Apache has some pretty cool modules… I think this one is in order… the only weirdness is that it uses bytes/s instead of bits/s. This config should allow unrestricted speed on my local network / VPN and restrict everything else to 600kbit/s

http://ivn.cl/category/apache/

BandWidthModule On
ForceBandWidthModule On
BandWidth 192.168.0.0/255.255.0.0 0
BandWidth 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0 75000

XRDP

XRDP is pretty cool! It’s an RDP to VNC gateway… The second link is where things get really cool. It can connect to VNC sessions on other computers! I now have something to do with my wyse RDP terminal that doesn’t require a windows box. 🙂

http://ubuntuwiki.net/index.php/Xrdp,_installing

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1168264

I had the following issue / fix

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6329147#post6329147

Roku Tricks

I’ve been playing with my roku netflix player (roku digital video player HD)

http://www.roku.com/roku-products

http://greggreno.com/rokuremote.html

http://forums.rokulabs.com/viewtopic.php?t=19958

http://www.roku.com/developer

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1118209

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21Hxu2vYn6U


http://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=33704

https://github.com/ear9mrn/MythRokuPlayer

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/ROKU_HD_Frontend

http://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?t=23520

1wire attic cooling

The attic was hot. Mounting a large fan in the vent seemed to help, but it was drawing 5.5A continuously, which is too much for the thermostat/humidistat my roommate bought. He left it on all the time, which is quite a bit of wasted power. I’ve seen 1wire devices online for quite a while and I’ve always wanted to play with them. The easiest way I can afford to connect sensors to computer is with 1wire. I’ve found my excuse.

Continue reading “1wire attic cooling”

Time Lapse Webcam

Project Requirements
At work we needed a time lapse camera of our new student center construction project. It needs to run continuously for entire length of construction project – approx 18 months. It should run mostly unattended.

Features
It captures 1 picture every 5 minutes. Storage capacity is cheap, so after using excel to make some projections, this worked out to be a reasonable rate for our resources. After some more research, I came to the conclusion that flash video has compatibility with most visitors while being relatively bandwidth efficient, but other codecs could be used. I originally got the idea from http://mydebian.blogdns.org/?p=261 but it wasn’t quite awesome enough, so I rewrote using Perl and expanded upon it.Continue reading “Time Lapse Webcam”

Touch Screen Jukebox

When he saw my first jukebox, My friend Derek wanted a touch screen jukebox… So we built him one! A star trek jukebox! (Derek is a good friend so I took payment in Mtn Dew and Taco Bell)

The case is made of MDF, the front is made if plexiglas pained from behind, an old computer case donated the power supply connector and motherboard tray, a touchscreen pulled from a kiosk was purchased on eBay. The rest of the stuff probably came from Radio Shack and Home Depot.

I may be a nerd, but I think Star Trek LCARS is the coolest interface around. So I made an LCARS skin for DWJukebox.

The best free jukebox software I’ve seen so far – DWJukebox

Star Trek LCARS Skin / Preview / Download

Check out the jukebox build pics.


Almost Done!

It’s almost done!

Hanging on the wall, doin its thing.

Inside view. Made hole in wall to run wires into other room for power/network/audio out.

Computer case fans, running off +5v from the only USB port on the craptop.

Using a hasp to keep it closed.

Now that it’s done, what music should I put on it? I’m looking for party music. Please IM/Email/Call Me/TXT Cell/Leave suggestions in comments!