MythTV Lives On

About a week ago I took the plunge to upgrade my MythTV system to .22 using Mythbuntu. My original backed and bedroom front end were getting on in years and it was time to take advantage of the new package. In order to preserve as much as possible and provide quick back out in-case things went south, I purchased a new 500GB HD to put the OS on. It's overkill but space is cheap and I got a great deal on it.

The other big feature of MythTV .22 is support for hardware acceleration on certain NVidia cards. I looked up VDPAU and selected the least expensive card that supported all of the features. I found a great deal on a  PNY VCG8600GXXB GeForce 8600 GT on NewEgg for a mere $25 after MIR.

When everything arrived, I set aside a full day for the upgrade. I moved the whole MythBuntu install onto a USB flash disk using Unetbootin, backed up the old database and the etc folder, disconnected the old HD and installed the new HD. Booting from the flash disk worked fine and I was quickly into the setup. Installation was a snap and recognized all of the hardware immediately, a task that has taken many weeks before. I followed the steps from MythPVR.com to migrate existing recordings to a new server. There is a comment at the end of the article that if the database is different enough, you should add a -f option to the import which did the trick for me.

I pointed the storage groups for videos at my already installed media drive (640GB) and then hot plugged in the old 500GB HD (love SATA), mounted it and then copied the recordings to the new recordings path. I launched the frontend and recordings were up and running. I was a little bummed that the video metadata didn't come through but instead of going back to the original database, I used the included jamu script to gather metadata for all of my movies. It looked a lot nicer and the information was much more accurate and detailed than before.

I went into the Playback settings and set it for VDPAU+. The difference is amazing between the old video card and this one. It's not just the VDPAU but having a dedicated card that seems to make the difference. The one major problem I did run into was pixelation of anything that was in MPEG2 format (recordings). I finally tracked down a thread that this is a known bug on certain motherboards and they are working on a fix. In the mean-time I have reverted to CPU Slim.

Overall I am very pleased with the new software and distribution.

Easier Dialing to Webex/GoToMeeting Conferences from iPhone

There are few things in this world I detest more than having to write something down from an electronic device just to have to type it back to same said device. After several miserable incidents of trying to copy the access number down for a conference (or even worse, memorize it!) I decided to go hunting for a better way. What I really wanted was a way to copy and paste the conference code into the dialer, what I found was better.

Thanks to a wonderful poster going by the name of droptopMBP in the Apple forums, dialing those pesky numbers is now easy with a small amount of up front work. In the notes field for your conference call event in your calendar, simply add a tel URL in the following format:

tel://+15551212p123456789

Note the p for a pause. The only shortcoming of this little shortcut is the inability to add a # at the end, but hey, one button instead of memorizing 9, I like it. The only problem I had is the need to wait a few seconds (like 5-10) for it to finish dialing the access code before I hit the # key. If you listen very carefully, you can hear it mashing the DTMF tones long and slow.

Here is a copy of the exact post with links to details on formatting the string properly:

1) Place the phone string in the "Notes" field (doesn't work in event title or location fields)
2) Prepend the phonestring with the HTML telephone URL "tel://" (ref: https://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/featuredarticles/iPhoneURLScheme_Reference/Articles/PhoneLinks.html )
3) Follow the remaining rules for embedding telephone URLS which you can read here: ( http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2806.txt )
4) Use "p" in place of "," for Pause
5) Don't include "#" (haven't identified a substitute yet

Example: The following works to dial the number 555-555-6543, pause 1 second, then dial the passcode string 123456. You would need to press # on your phone keypad to end the passcode unless the conference service you're using automatically accepts the code after a timeout...

tel://+1-555-555-6543p12345

Now, go forth and conference without driving off the road.

Visual Studio Crashes on Async Callback to User Control

I am working on some code for a client that involves a tabbed interface containing a User Control in each tab. This nicely separates out all of the UI logic for each of the tabs so you don't end up with one monster file with every control from every tab. Trying to be a considerate UI citizen, I am trying to populate the ListBox controls asynchronously using a BackgroundWorker.

Mac Me Baby! Day 7

I am officially up and running on this (hopefully) long and fruitful journey with my Mac. I am currently installing the Codex application developer tools on my system so I can use make. I needed it today to compile dhcpd and couldn't believe it wasn't already there. A little search through my original box and there was the original install disc.

I have had some minor problems with Virtual Box. The newest one is that I can't save new documents to the shared directory between my mac and Win7 image. It seems to be common and I will look into it later.

I had to take a screenshot. Shift-Command-3 takes a full screenshot and puts it on your desktop, Shift-Command-4 lets you select a region and does the same. I miss putting it in clipboard a bit but it's a minor issue.

If you are contemplating making the switch, go for it. I can say the water is safe and you won't be stranded. If you have made the switch. I hope that last 7-days of my experience helped you. Please feel free to comment and post feedback and I will grow these articles to hopefully be a resource for others.

Happy Mac-ing!

Mac Me Baby! Day 5

Monday was the first day back at work with the MacBook Pro after a weekend of installing software. This is trial by fire for me since there isn't much time to fix anything that has gone wrong. I moved my Dell into another bag and left it in the car for the day. Far enough away that I wouldn't chicken out and grab it at the first sign of difficulty but close enough that I could get to it in an emergency. I ran into some minor missing software, things that OpenOffice didn't handle like Microsoft Project and Microsoft Visio files I needed to reference. I was lucky that some of them were in PDF format so I could at least reference them, if not edit them.

Mac Me Baby! Day 2

Man have I been busy with this new Mac. I figured out how to turn on tap to click and the trackpad is now my best friend. I adapted to it's functions so quickly that the trackpad on my Dell is now a joke as far as functionality.

I ended up installing Sun Virtual Box, installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit and got Microsoft Outlook up and running. That has always been my crutch and deal-breaker, I am an Outlook addict and it drives all of my daily activities. I have OpenOffice installed on the Mac side of things though and will do my best to stick with it for my daily office-esqe stuff.

Mac Me Baby! Day 1

I sit at the virgin screen of a new MacBook Pro with no idea what to do next. I have been a Win/PC expert since Star Trek: The Next Generation was running new episodes. I can bring up a new Windows system in my sleep.