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Paul's Time Sink

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links for August 27, 2008

Paul Westbrook | 27 August, 2008 23:59

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Windows Media Center

Paul Westbrook | 23 August, 2008 12:59

I am thinking about installing Microsoft Windows Vista Media Center on our Mac mini, espcially since our Xbox 360 is doing everything that the Mac mini used to do.  I am planning on keeping the Mac mini in the closet, near our Windows Home Server, and then I would view this content on the Xbox 360 through Windows Media Extender.

There are several things that I would be able to do with this setup:

  • Install TVTonic to have access to "Internet TV" and video podcasts  (The 2008 Olympics is available this way)
  • Play ripped DVDs that are hosted on the Windows Home Server (1, 2)

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links for August 21, 2008

Paul Westbrook | 21 August, 2008 23:59

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AAC, SqueezeCenter and Windows Home Server

Paul Westbrook | 21 August, 2008 02:22

On my Windows Home Server, I have installed SqueezeCenter.  This allows our SqueezeBox to play out music, and we don't need to leave a separate computer on.  I noticed that aac files were not playing, but the SqueezeBox was just skipping over them.

When I looked at the configuration of SqueezeCenter aac files are transcoded with mov123.  This program is essentially just a wrapper for QuickTime.  The problem is that Windows Home Server doesn't come with QuickTime installed.

I didint want to install QuickTime, as this install brings of other stuff that I didn't want.  (i.e. Apple's Software Update)  I found this thread that describes mplayer and faad as alternatives to mov123. 

After spending several hours to get either mplayer or faad to work, I decided to just install QuickTime.  I had to search on Apple's support site for a link to a version of QuickTime that would install on the home server.  (The latest version of QuickTime requires XP or Vista, and the home server is running a deritive of Windows Server 2003

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Posting daily activity

Paul Westbrook | 21 August, 2008 01:29

A while ago, I configured del.icio.us to post the list of bookmarks from that day on my blocg.  For some reason this stopped working for me.  I like these type of automatic posts, as it makes it easy to share various pages.

I decided to write a plugin for LifeType that will import a rss feed, and then "summarize" the rss items and create a post with this text.  I probably could have gotten the del.icio.us blog posting to work, but If I created the plugin, this woud allow me to include Google Reader shared items, or Twitter tweets in the post.

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links for August 20, 2008

Paul Westbrook | 20 August, 2008 23:59

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links for August 18, 2008

Paul Westbrook | 18 August, 2008 23:59

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links for August 17, 2008

Paul Westbrook | 17 August, 2008 23:59

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WHS Download Manager

Paul Westbrook | 17 August, 2008 00:04

Our Windows Home Server is running all of the time, so I would love to use this machine as a way to download large files, especially when I am not at home.  I thought that WHS Download Manager would do exactly that I want.  This Add-In allows you to specify urls to be downloaded and where to download the files to.  Unfortunately, the only way to access this is trough the Windows Home Server Console.  So, if I wanted to start a download when I am not at home, I need to vpn into my network, and then rdp into my server.

I am thinking that uTorrent and the Windows Home Server Add-In would be a better solution, at least for torrent files. At least with this solution would allow me to use a web browser to start the downloads.

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email security

Paul Westbrook | 16 August, 2008 21:59

I have used gpg, off an on, for several years now.  I have always liked the ability to confirm that I was the one that actually sent an email, and the ability to send an email and know that the receipient is the only one that can read the email.

Originally when I started to use gpg, the only way to sign a message was to incude the text based signature.  Then SMiME allowed the signature to be included as an attachment.  The problem that I have had is to explain to people that I am sending the email to what the attachement is or what the text at the bottom of the message is.

I think that I will have to come up with a good description that I can put in the signature comment that can help explain what the signature is.

So now, I am using FireGPG when I use the Gmail web interface, and Thunderbird with the Enigmail support  when I am using the desktop client.

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GParted Live-CD

Paul Westbrook | 08 August, 2008 01:55

On my laptop, I haven't booted into Windows for several months, and I am running out of free disk space, so I decided that I would delete my windows paritions and then resize my root partition.  This page mentions the GParted Live-CD as an easy way to accomplish this.

Once I booted the CD, it was very easy to delete the partitions, and specify the size of the root partition.  I was a litte worried about my situation, because my existing parition needed to be moved in addtion to being resized.

But it worked perfectly, and after a few hours, my parition is 70GB larger.

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boxee

Paul Westbrook | 06 August, 2008 22:55

Boxee looks like a pretty interesting "10 foot" experience for watching content from your computer.  Recently they announced a linux version, and I was interested in trying it out on my XPS m1330, especially since Joost is not available for linux.

The install was very easy, but I have not been able to successfully run it.  When I try an launch it, the window appears, but it never finished drawing.  Also, I am not able to select anything.

I have installed it, and may install it again when it enters beta.

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Skype for Windows Mobile

Paul Westbrook | 04 August, 2008 12:17

This post mentions that the Windows Mobile version of Skype has been upated.  We use Skype at work, so I was interested in trying this out.

The download and install went well.  I was able to use it to send text messages, but I wasn't able tomake a voice call.  I am not sure if it is possible for Skype to use the microphone on my phone to send audio to Skype.

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Changing publish date of feed

Paul Westbrook | 29 July, 2008 01:29

I am trying to figure out how to process a rss feed and have the publsh dates of the items change to "now".  I know that I can use magpierss to do this, but I wanted to see if I can do this in Yahoo Pipes. 

I created this pipe, which should do what I want, and it looks like it is working in the debugger.  But, when you look at the resulting rss output, the publish date of the items aren't changed.

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PVConnect?

Paul Westbrook | 29 July, 2008 00:29

The HP Media Smart Server Update includes the optional PVConnect add-in.  PVConnect is a DNLA compliant media streaming server.

I am trying to figure out why someone would want to install this. There seem to be several problems, some with workarounds, with running this add-in:

Windows Home Server already has a DNLA server.  I haven't seen anything that explicitly calls out the features that PVConnect adds.  If I could find something that would state that this will transcode all of the vidoes that I have, that are not supported by our Xbox 360, so I could play them, I would install it.

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