Streaming HD with OSX

I downloaded my first HD movie on my OSX Mac with SABnzbd+, and it appeared to be in PS3 format. I wondered how i could stream it to my Xbox360 to watch it on my TV, or even just play it on my Mac, and found this link mentioning some promissing solutions:

Boxee (worked best for me at least being able to view the PS3 video on the Mac, i haven't been able to stream it to the TV or 360. Perculiar: you use your userid/password you created during online signup to login to the local client).

I also tried: Plex, XBMC, Perian, MPlayer and VLC.

Michel pointed me to Twonky and EyeConnect. Not free. And Twonky is Windows only. Since i hadn't found a better free solution, I gave EyeConnect a try.

EyeConnect didn't stream to the Xbox. EyeConnect on my Mac detected the Xbox on the LAN, but the Xbox didn't detect the Mac/EyeConnect. Elgato, makers of EyeConnect clarified: "The Xbox 360 does not use UPnP AV to discover content over the network. It uses a separate, Windows-based standard. It can connect using the Media Center on a PC, or via specialized Mac software like Connect360. EyeConnect is solely an UPnP AV server - the Xbox 360 does not use that format, so it won't work with EyeConnect. Many other devices do use UPnP AV (DLNA), like the PlayStation 3".

So i tried Connect360. 1st i ran into an error when starting Connect360: "A required port appears to be in use, please free ports 1900 and/or 9335 if you wish to use Connect360". On the website it said it might be in conflict with EyeConnect. Tried to deinstall that: still the error. Opened up terminal and looked what was using port 1900 (through the command "sudo lsof -i :1900"): EyeConnect! Found a de-install-script, ran it: still the error. Started Activity Monitor, killed EyeConnect-processes: Connect360 started! Now both the Mac and the Xbox360 'saw' eachother, but Connect360 only looks in the iTunes folder(s). My movie was in a different location. I tried to add the movie to iTunes, but iTunes did not report being unable to add it to the library AND did not add it. Don't talk to me about the Apple being super intuitive all the time: it has LOTS of non intuitive elements!

Anyway, looking for another solution, i found Rivet. Gave THAT a try. And YES, it allowed me to specify another location. BUT: only at this point i found out the Xbox360 doesn't play this movie format :-). No MPG-support on Xbox360. Thank you Microsoft!

(image source: Apple.com)

Internet via glas? Vergt een nieuwe router?

(Dutch) Wij hadden internet via Planet (KPN): altijd erg tevreden over geweest! In onze nieuwe woonplaats werd internet via glas aangeboden door Reggefiber / Twennet / ConceptsICT. Hieronder wat er bij de overstap fout ging, maar 1st waarom je dan soms een andere router nodig hebt.

Ik gebruikte een Draytek Vigor 2600plusAnnexA om mijn lokale LAN machines via ADSL te laten internetten. Ik probeerde die Draytek (en mijn 8-poorts Sweex switch) te gebruiken om internet via de glasvezel aan de gang te krijgen, maar kreeg het niet voor elkaar. Vanuit de glas-aanbieder kreeg ik een 195-IP-adres. Op mijn LAN moest ik private IP-adressen gebruiken uit de 10- of 192-reeks. Waar moest ik welke kabels steken?

Ik concludeerde uiteindelijk dat dit niet ging lukken met wat ik in huis had. Mijn switch heeft namelijk geen DHCP-functie, dus met alleen de switch ging het niet lukken. En de Draytek gaat er volgens mij van uit dat de WAN-verbinding altijd via de ADSL-poort binnen komt: ik kan niet 1 van de 4 poorten als WAN-poort definieren of afschermen, zodat ik de rest als LAN-poorten kan gebruiken.

Dus vandaag heb ik een Linksys (Cisco) WRT54G2 gekocht. Ik had al een WRTG54, en het feit dat je daarop allerlei open source firmwares kunt zetten, geeft je vrijheid. De WRT54G2 heeft een bedrade WAN-poort, en daarnaast 4 LAN-poorten. Nu surfen we dus via glas.

Jammer dat mijn telefoontje naar de ConceptsICT-helpdesk niet hielp: "nee hoor meneer, moet gewoon kunnen met de Draytek .... ik heb thuis volgens mij alleen een switch tussen het glas en mijn LAN" . Ach, je moet maar net de goede helpdesk-medewerker treffen. Ik ben nu erg benieuwd naar de kwaliteit van de dienstverlening en het signaal... Ook de TV en de telefoon loopt over het glas. In de aanloop (aanvraag/aanleg-fase) kregen we de indruk dat de communicatie tussen alle partijen waar ConceptsICT mee werkt alles behalve vlekkeloos loopt. Ik hoop dat we over enige maanden kunnen zeggen dat als het eenmaal is aangesloten, het ook goed werkt, meestal in de lucht is en van goede kwaliteit (signaal) is!

Update 17 november: we kunnen sinds de aansluiting overigens niet gebeld worden :-(. De telefoon gaat wel over als je ons belt, alleen horen wij niets. Mensen denken dus dat wij continu niet thuis zijn. We kunnen wel bellen. De nummerportering is fout gegaan, al 2 maal, volgens Concepts ICT. Foutjes kunnen gemaakt worden, alleen jammer dat we de meeste keren van de helpdesk 1st te horen krijgen dat het 'morgen werkt'. En jammer dat als het bij de volgende poging het werkend te maken niet lukt, je dan weer een extra week moet wachten :-(.

Update 20/11: we kunnen nog steeds niet gebeld worden via Concepts en ook vandaag gaat het ondanks toezeggingen niet werken. Ongelooflijk wat er fout kan gaan: we hebben nu echt al tientalle malen Concepts gebeld. Nu kregen we vandaag te horen dat het lag aan KPN, die moesten we zelf maar eens bellen. En ook daar een drama: echt UREN gebeld, tientalle mensen gesproken, doorverbonden, vele malen je verhaal opnieuw vertellen, foute doorverbindingen (zou KPN meten hoe vaak doorverbonden wordt? En hoe vaak dat fout gaat (3 maal na doorverbinden een verbroken verbinding zojuist)?), mensen die de info in hun systeem heilig achten ("nee meneer, in het systeem staat...") ... vast allemaal goed bedoeld, maar voordat je iemand spreekt die je ECHT kan helpen... We hebben nu vele datums gehoord van zowel KPN als Concepts. Volgens KPN heeft Concepts pas op 3/11 nummerportering aangevraagd (dat zou kunnen, omdat in de brief van Concepts, die wij een week voor activering ontvingen, onterecht stond dat wij een nieuw telefoonnr zouden krijgen, waarbij het nr werd vermeld dat we al hadden bij KPN, waarop ik direct Concepts heb verteld dat we dat nr al hadden en dat verhuisd moest worden), 4 dagen nadat alles bij ons had moeten werken. En KPN mag daar een maand over doen: "ik zie in ons systeem 3/12". Maar Concepts heeft ons dat nooit verteld: het zou altijd morgen, of de 12/de, de 20ste etc werken... Andere KPN-er: "uw wensdatum is 12/11". Nee, onze wensdatum was 30/10 (maar kennelijk heeft Concepts na al onze telefoontjes etc een poging gedaan de datum naar voren te halen en is dat in het KPN-systeem als wensdatum neergezet, maar dat is dus de Concepts-wensdatum ;-)). Ik wordt eindelijk een keer gebeld door Concepts (dank Frank!): er is een nieuwe datum: 24/11. Na zoveel datums weet je niet meer wat je moet/kan geloven... We hopen er maar het beste van. Wat een drama-traject. O ja, na contact met KPN toch nog maar een keer de telefoon overgeprikt naar KPN-koperkabel en het lijkt of we daar toch nog op gebeld kunnen worden...

En voor iedereen die dat zoekt (waaronder ik zelf weleens): de DNS instellingen / DNS-servers van Concepts ICT zijn 213.197.28.3 en 213.197.30.28. Een goed alternatief zijn de DNS-servers van OpenDNS: 208.67.222.222 en 208.67.220.220.

Nice tool to compare files

In my current job i have repeatedly been comparing parts of code and trying to find the differences (for instance as you have a test and prod version of a file). Looking for a tool to ease that work, i found WinMerge, which in my case did the job perfectly. It compares files, and it's free! So a thanks to the developers!

What is phpbb_search_wordmatch for?

A friend of mine, assuming i know all these things ;-), sent me a message she got from her provider. She received a message from her hosting provider stating things like "database problem ... Some of the tables are very large ... indexing your forum stressess our servers". So you wonder: what is phpbb_search_wordmatch for? How do you clean the file or make it smaller? How to make a backup? How to move the file when you switch providers? I searched around, and found the following:

* at http://www.phpbbdoctor.com/blog/2007/01/26/how-does-search-work-part-i/ it is explained how search works in phpbb and what the role of the mentioned table is
* at http://www.phpbbdoctor.com/blog/2007/03/04/rebuilding-search-index-performance-results/ you find an explanation on how to tune / backup /optimize the table
* at http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=329629 you find a mod to help you manage the table
* at http://www.phpbbdoctor.com/doc_columns.php?id=16 i found a small definition of what the table does

(Dutch version). Waar is phpbb_search_wordmatch voor? Hoe schoon je het op? Hoe maak je een backup? Een vriendin vroeg het me, nadat ze een melding van haar hosting bedrijf kreeg met teksten als "database probleempje ... Het één en ander is een beetje te groot geworden ... indexeren van uw forum op uw account zorgt voor overlast op de server ... Wij verzoeken u hierbij daarom om uw database op te schonen". Ik zocht en vond het volgende:

* op http://www.phpbbdoctor.com/blog/2007/01/26/how-does-search-work-part-i/ staat uitleg over search in phpbb en de rol van de genoemde tabel "phpbb_search_wordmatch"
* op http://www.phpbbdoctor.com/blog/2007/03/04/rebuilding-search-index-performance-results/ staat hoe je "phpbb_search_wordmatch" kunt tunen (ze verwijzen daarvoor naar een eerdere post)
* op http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=329629 staat iets over een mod (progje? phpbb-taal?) om die tabel op te schonen (en er staat bij dat het ook handig is als je "You want to transfer your db to another server")
* op http://www.phpbbdoctor.com/doc_columns.php?id=16 vind je nog een 1-regelige beschrijving van wat die tabel nu is/doet

(image from http://www.massrelay.com/_Lib/images/userImages/img057.jpg )

Upgrade lesson: wait some time!

(before turning people off: i recommend you try Ubuntu: it's great! But like with any OS-upgrade: be sure you have a backup. The newest Ubuntu has a great feature: Wubi: you can install Ubuntu on top of Windows, like any usual application: a great way to try it out (and see if all of your hardware already is supported with the right drivers))
My Ubuntu (version 7.10, Gutsy) told me a new version of Ubuntu was available: 8.04 (Hardy Herron). Since i loved Ubuntu, i thought: lets try it, it can only get better, right? Wrong! Having done lots of operating system upgrades before and knowing you can get lucky with a smooth install, but more often you'll run into problems, i should have known better. Why would ANY OS be any better than another when doing upgrades?

You guessed it: upgrading my Acer Travelmate 4001WLMi (with Ati Mobility Radeon 9600 / 9700 graphics card) ran into some problems :-). First of all i had problems with graphics (like an almost completely white screen where you couldn't see the mouse anymore). I managed to solve that, but i wanted at least a system doing what i had gotten used to: Ubuntu with Compiz (Vista Aero effects etc) and Cairo Dock (Mac OSX dock effect). But i was unable to get both running. I looked around the internet, tried al kinds of tricks, reinstalls, de-installs etc, but finally ended up with a system which didn't even boot the GUI (X) anymore, whatever i tried...

So i wanted to downgrade to Gutsy, which worked perfect for me. But how, when you're on a machine with broken DVD drive? Looked around and found this article about booting Windows (my laptop is dual boot, which by the way is great, especially when you screw up one of the 2 ;-)) and running the Ubuntu installer (and other flavours) from within Windows. The 1st worked for me. So i'm back on Gutsy, waiting for Hardy to get better in supporting my config (apparently Ati and Nvidia configurations can run into problems).

Windows Movie Maker alternative

A friend of mine told me he was ripping streaming audio with WM Recorder (especially video's on Dutch broadcast-sites worked well). As he also used Windows Movie Maker he asked whether i knew of alternatives, and cheaper ones than Adobe Premiere. I told him we used VirtualDub for a lot of video editting, and while checking on current developments i found this comparison of Vdub and Avidemux.

By the way: want to rip (for instance an asf-stream), read how to do it with VideoLan (SDP can be helpful to). Convert asf to for instance wmv: use SUPER. Download ASF: i had some success with GetASFStream. And if you're interested in multi media editting tools, be sure to check out doom9 (don't know why they picked that domain name). And Osalt lists alternatives to a lot of Windows-applications. Want to capture streaming video and looking for utilities: read this post.

And this blogpost sums up some tools to convert video formats.

Solution for slow Ubuntu boot

I thought i would give Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon), a popular Linux-flavor, a try on my laptop (dual booting with Windows XP). Installing it was easy, it looks great, but booting it was slow: it took around 4 minutes! And whatever the beauty is, people don't want to wait that long!

So i visited some forums and finally stopped searching and posted my problem in a thread with messages of people claiming to boot in under a minute (which basically makes you think "what's wrong with me that i can't get that?". A friendly person pointed me to this thread (i removed RO QUIET SPLASH as boot parameters) and now i am booting in under a minute too :-)! (you can edit boot parameters at startup by pressing E in grub: if you want to make the changes persistent, edit menu.lst: "sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst")

I also found this solution (edit /etc/fstab) to skip fschk at boot, since i don't want to wait for my Windows-drives to get checked at every Linux boot or so.

And now that this is fixed, i read about Compiz and thought i would give it a try.

Installed it using this tutorial (for my Acer Travelmate with Ati Radeon i did NOT activate the restricted driver, so follow that tutorial from the step where they install Compiz), installed the driver for the graphics card of my Acer laptop (yeah, all this sounds pretty nerdy right? Too bad you still need to do this). It's easy to get lost in all the options and shortcuts, but you can do what Apple Mac OSX users do with coverflow/dock/Expose (Compiz Scale) etc, what Vista users do with Aero (Compiz Shift Switcher and Application Switcher)... and all for free ;-). Thanks to the hard working open source developers! Thanx guys! At the end i tweaked it so i can switch Compiz on and off (that icon didn't appear, but it turned out you have to make the task bar 2 pixels higher ?!). And i also installed Cairo-dock, a dock like Mac users know (add it to the session/startup-programs to have it start at boot).

Update March 4th: just ran into this Wired-article "Optimize A Fresh Ubuntu Installation". Oh, you might want to install Drapes (through the Synaptic Package Manager) to change wallpaper images. And re-enable the Backspace-button in Firefox to take you back to the previous page).

The Future of Reputation

An anonymous source (;-)) pointed me to this (free) book. Since the anonymous source often tells me i should be carefull what i post and when i use my own name on the internet, until now i have been posting under my own name. I should probably read this book, by a law professor and blogger. But i don't have the time, and reading the 1st paragraphs of the conclusion took me to long ;-) ... So i post about it, and maybe one time i'll find / make the time.

Thunderbird with added calendar: Outlook alternative?

Some people i talked to about Thunderbird said they were not going to abandon Outlook, as Outlook also includes a calendar. Well, wait no more :-)! An Indian company decided to take the Thunderbird code and add some things, amongst which is a calendar. Ah, the joyce of open source!

Spicebird does more: it integrates functions, so you can easily create an appointment via e-mail. And chat and email are integrated (easily chat with email-contacts). It also packs a rss-reader and a to-do-list/task-manager. Applets allow you to add more functions. The developers are planning functions like blogging by using the email-function, a content management system and a connector for Exchange. Give it a try!

Source: Fan.TV.

Desktop publishing software (free?)

My wife was looking for good but cheap desktop publishing software. Many years ago i read about Ragtime (solo) but they stopped supplying a free version for personal use. So searched for and found this review of desktop-publishing suites that at least gives you an idea of popular DTP software and their scores . I also once heard of (open source) Scribus, which you can download for free and read reviews from at itreviews and trustedreviews. . If this all is not enough, you might want to give PagePlus a (free) try.

Free your data & save a lot of time!

Go Dataportability.org!!!

DataPortability - Connect, Control, Share, Remix from Smashcut Media on Vimeo. Source: Trendmatcher.

Linux with built in wmv-support

I love the open source movement, and have Linux on a lot of my machines, mostly in dual boot configurations. I even tried Linux on the PC of my mother; i used Xandros, as i thought that to be a nice and easy distro. But it turned out to have some problems with streaming Windows media.

I guess Linux pro's can solve that, but it took me far to much time. Even the machine i have Fedora on, doesn't support wmv-video. I tried to get it working, read i had to add repositories (had a tough time finding out how), and ran into error messages when i tried to install w32codecs.

So i decided to look and see whether there are any distro's which support common web-stuff like wmv out of the box.

I found PCLinuxOS and (simply)Mepis. I will have a look at them later, but thought to jot that down already. Any tips are welcome :-).

Oh: check out distrowatch for the latest versions, most popular Linux-distro's etc.

An organisation using the TopDesk helpdesk software changed to GLPI, an open source based auto-inventory helpdesk system. Robert Borst reports (Dutch, ask me if you want a translation): "GPLI is een helpdesk-systeem wat rust op de basis van OCS inventory. De laatste verzamelt de gegevens van de client en stuurt deze naar de centrale server. Verder kent het statistieken, contract-, licentie- en consumables-management en is natuurlijk alles aan elkaar te linken. Via plugins is het systeem uit te breiden. Het is open software met de grootste gebruikersgroep in Frankrijk. Wij zijn hier naartoe over gegaan omdat onze Topdesk niet meer voldeed.
Voordeel van deze applicatie is dat ie niet, zoals b.v. Spiceworks, vol zit met reclame en gewoon (en SNEL !, zeker in vergelijk met Topdesk) doet wat je wilt. Doordat de gebruiker met z'n gewone username en password inlogt op de helpdesk-webpagina's weet het systeem via de OCS inventory welke hardware de gebruiker tot z'n beschikking heeft en kan de call dus heel specifiek aangegeven worden. Dus als de gebruiker een probleem heeft met een printer, kan ie die gewoon uit z'n lijstje selecteren. Scheelt een hoop op en neer gevraag. Voor installatie installeer je eerst OCS inventory, daarna GLPI". Bron: NGN-nieuwsbrief.

Did you also get errors when (re)installing the Gimp on Windows? I got: "The Setup has detected a fatal error and cannot continue at this time. The files in your GTK+ installation directory appear to come from too old GTK+ version, or some of the needed files are missing. Please install GTK+ version 2.4.14 or newer from before running the Gimp setup again".

Even when instaling the latest version of the GTK and Gimp? Well, i did, but solved it after some searching on the Net: for me this newest 2.4 (rc2) for Windows (installable executable, no just source-files ;-)) worked.

Webbased Project Management

Updated June 2015.

Sometimes you're in need of a project management tool while not having access to Microsoft project. An alternative would be nice, preferably free (and/or open source).

Through this thread i found the following possibilities: Open Workbench (former ABT Workbench), Ganttproject, Faces, Basecamp, OpenProj and GoPlan.

I haven't tested them myself yet, but decided to save this list for the next moment i AM looking for such a tool, and for anybody elses :-). Please let me know if you tried some of these...

For people not looking for web-based software, ProjectLibre is an open source MS Project alternative. A great site when looking for alternatives is alternativeto.net, which also has a section on MS Project.

Update 03/2008: this ReadWriteWeb-article mentions Liquid Planner and Clarizen. Update sept 2010: Clarizen comes out as the best in this Top Ten Review - tests of non-free online planning tools.

Update 06/2009: found out about Thymer and AceProject.

Update 11/2009: a simple but nice looking planner: Tom's Planner.

Check out the Wikipedia-list of collaboration tools as well... You might want to read this short article on web based project mgt.

Update Jan 2010: ClockingIt looks nice to: pitched as a way to keep track of the hours you spend, but with a Gantt chart option that looks really nice:

Update Jun 2010: i read about Gantter (feb 2013: the only free online project planning tool i could find with which you can produce a Gannt chart with possibility to specify dependencies between tasks, like predecessors):

 

Update Aug 14 2010: Gantto has entered the ring :-). Nov 2011: Asana is another task-/project-management environment. May 2012: iDoneThis might be worth a look when you want to dispense tasks and easily remind people of their planned work (automatic emails!) (Dutch article about iDoneThis).

Update June 2012: Interstate is another 'web based projectmanagement tool'. And Wrike is another, now available through a freemium model.

Update nov 2012: Smartsheet looks nice to.

Update jun 2015: More tools? This is a nice list.

Image source: Wikipedia.

I don't currently use a gateway-PC at home myself, as to me this seems a waste of energy: this PC has to be on 24*7 to be functional, so even uses energy while no-one of the family is using a client-PC. But i was interested in this Untangle-initiative, as it tries to protect you from spam, virusses, malware, phishing and more ... and is open-source. Maybe one day i will give it a try, or maybe it is possible to install it on another device that is on 24*7 anyway (router, media-box etc).

Super videoconverter

The (for now) ultimate free video and audio format converter? SUPER seems to do quite a lot, and with a nice interface. I was looking for a utility to convert x264 to xvid or divx. I found lots of info on how to take lots of steps to accomplish this. Then i found SUPER. You select the desired output options, drag & drop the input-file, click Encode and .... voila. Output-options include formats like Nintendo DS, PSP, PS3, Zune, iPod, FLV, VOB, MPG, MP4, GP3, AVI (including Divx and Xvid-codecs), MOV ... oh, and yeah, WMV and WMA ;-). The first time i used it, to convert a digital HD movie, it crashed, but i don't yet delete it. I read about this online app that converts lots of formats: mediaconverter; it even does eps and ps files, amongst many others.

Update April 22nd 2009: a friend of mine wanted to convert Flash flv movies to avi / wmv. I looked around for him. Vixy.net can do something online. Other options are VLC (VideoLAN) and FFMpeg.

Update nov 2010: FreewareGenius states Freemake Video Converter is a favorite to convert video.

By the way: if you're interested in recording info from lots of sources, including cable and video, and playing it back on lots of devices like tv, ipod etc, have a look at the Neuros OSD!

Nice movie about the open source movement, OS Revolution (won Best Documentary on at least 2 festivals):