Author Archives: Jeff Pabian

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Update on low cost HTPC

Man, I was wrong. I’ll admit it. In a previous post, I mentioned how I was going to help my brother-in-law with building a very low cost HTPC. He had an old PC laying around. I didn’t know what speed it was but it was clear that it was maxed out with RAM, had no USB ports, and no AGP slot.

So, I put in another PCI video card I had that had RCA video out and took out the modem card and installed a NIC in it. It booted up fine into W2k. For a quick proof of concept, I booted off a Knoppix CD to see if the hard drive and other devices would be seen.

Now, I wasn’t paying attention, up to this boot to the boot messages, but Knoppix came up and said there was only 32MB free and I should make a swap space on the primary hard drive at least double my available RAM and it recommended between 60MB and 120MB. Hoo-boy. I then saw that it was an AMD K6 at 199Mhz. It also had a 4GB hard drive. This was going to be more trouble than it was worth.

I have a really old Dell that is 450Mhz. I just turned it off so maybe I’ll give this to him. I am now interested enough in continuing with this proof of concept as I have never played with MythTV. I still think a modded Xbox with XBMC might be the best way to go.

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learning (and remembering) german

I took German in high school for four years. I took two years of it in college. That was in 1992. I never really had chance to use it after that for some time, but I enjoyed being able to watch German movies and an occasional German song or two.

Then, years later, my sister-in-law met a guy who was from Germany. Long story short, they got married and had a wedding in Germany in the small village where his family still lives. They live in the Black Forest about an hour south of Stuttgart. When we found out the wedding was going to be there, we were so excited. What a great chance to go native in Germany. I was curious how I would remember my German, or if I even would. This was in September 2001.

I was so surprised how my German came back to me. Being immersed in the language and being on our own for a while really helped. It was wonderful. Ever since then, I’ve really wanted to continue to learn German and grow my vocabulary. But I feel that I have enough base, and basic understanding that if I wanted to take classes I might need to start at the beginning since I don’t remember all the vocabulary or take a more advanced class but still lack in the vocabulary department. I wasn’t sure where I’d fit it. I also didn’t have the money or the time to take classes. I work right down the street from the Goethe Institute but the times just never worked out. I did take their placement test, but never faxed it back in.

There have been many blogsites about learning languages and they’ve been a great help. Some of those pages are gone, but in their absences, other helpful tools, like Skype, have emerged.

Here’s a page I put together with some of my most helpful items. Expect it to be updated.

 Learning German Resources

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Be the ocean when it meets the sky

Man, I tell you what… Neil Young is the greatest. If you don’t know about his last albums and what he has done, you got to do your homework. Nevermind the CSN&Y bullshit, he is a force to be recognized. He is a visionary and super creative. I had the pleasure of seeing him with my wife on the Greendale tour. It was a great concert here in Atlanta, despite the people talking throughout the performance.

I have the Crazy Horse DVD and that’s pretty good, but seeing him in concert and the video from Greendale, it brought a tear to my eye. There was something about it that was so moving. It’s not easy to explain. But if you check out these vids, maybe you might feel what I feel:

  • Be the Rain
  • Double E
  • Sun Green

These are very good performances. Now, I should probably say that I really liked the Shocking Pinks, which I have found that many people do not like. But, I don’t think they understood what Neil was trying to do or what he had accomplished.

Even now, as I watch these videos in review, I can’t help feel moved by them. What gets me is that you got “artists” today like the top pop stars who are nothing more than slick marketing campaigns. Then you got someone like Neil Young. I wonder if Mozart had a similar type of situation when he was alive. Was he passed over by the mainstream only to be recognized for his genius 100’s of years later?

One of the best CD’s I own is almost all but unknown amongst my friends. I’ve always been a huge Jim Jarmusch fan, (I wish I could be in the “Sons’ of Lee Marvin”). Dead Man is one of my all time favorite movies. It’s a really great movie that is well written and well produced. Neil Young did the soundtrack and it is so unique and special, it is one of my favorite albums.

I could go on and draw the lines between Neil Young and Nick Cave, but that might be a topic for another night. There is so much good music out there that simply isn’t on the radar because the airwaves are overloaded with crap.

Oh well. More for me!

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low cost htpc

One of the other things I wanted to write about was the low cost HTPC I am helping my brother-in-law build.  Not only is cost a factor, but also connectivity.  He’s got a wireless router and could have a hard line ethernet to his entertainment center, but we ain’t there just yet.

I took his PC home to download and install some of the things I talked about before.  This is a really old PC; it doesn’t have any USB or ethernet on it.  I’ll be curious to see what speed processor it is.   It doesn’t even had AGP so I have an older PCI card with RCA video out on it.  I guess that will work.  I plan on building it and trying it out.

The other option I pitched to him was to get an old XBOX and use XBMC.  With the softmods available, it would be easy to hack for that purpose.  He’s not a gamer in the least bit, so an old xbox with XBMC might be the best. Then he’ll just have to worry about connectivity.  I’ll update my progress as I begin.  It will probably be tomorrow or the next night when I have a chance to start hammering on it.

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ViaTalk, Trixbox, and your IVR

I set up a quick page on my ViaTalk setup. You can access the link via this page:

ViaTalk and Trixbox

Like I said before, this is a really slick setup. I have a different “time condition” for the weekend that will give the caller a chance to call our cell phones if we don’t answer the main line within 30 seconds. The trial and error paid off since I have a much better understanding of how it’s all glued together.

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a lot of things going on

This is the second time my draft got wiped out. If it doesn’t work this time, I am going to go to bed and try again tomorrow. Anyways, I got some cool things I am working on so here’s a quick update. Expect some updates over the next couple of weeks.

  • Trixbox and ViaTalk
  • Zero-Cost HTPC

My VoIP provider is ViaTalk. I’ve been with them since 6/06 and they have been great. I’ve been using an unlocked PAP2 ATA adapter. Recently, my Dad sent me a wonderful PC case he no longer needed and I installed Trixbox. I’ve played around with Asterisk on FreeBSD but the whole Trixbox suite is pretty neat. So now I have several softphones and my PAP2 all talking to the Trixbox box. The whole things works so well, I am used to tweaking something until it is perfect and this exceeded my expectation since it works so well. Once I understood everything, it is a snap to set up and adminstrate. A UNIX/LINUX background will give you a leg up on understanding the internals and help you debug all that much more effectively.

Now, my brother-in-law wanted to find a way to display German videos on his TV. In my case, I have an xbox with XMBC and it is a no brainer for me. But he has some intersting limitations, like he doesn’t want to spend any money on it, he might not be able to easily wire his connection, and it has to pass the spousal approval factor. Luckily, he’s got an old AMD PC laying around so we are going to install, (at least the plan is at this point), Ubuntu and MythTV on it and hook it up to his receiver. He doesn’t have an HDTV so RCA or S-Video will probably be okay. This is a learning experience for both of us, so I’ll be posting some updates on this effort over time.

More as time permits. I’ve kept some of the person updates out of this post. Those will come at a later point.

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i want my two hours back.

Last night, after everyone went to bed, I began to watch a movie, called Firewall with Harrison Ford. The movie kept me interested but when it was done, I was disappointed. And the more I thought about it, the more frustrated I got. Here’s my big secret.

I haven’t told ANYONE I watched this movie; it’s been a secret.

I didn’t mean to keep it a secret. I wanted to tell people that I thought it was a bad movie. I wanted to make fun of it with my friends. But for some reason, it is almost like I am ashamed to tell people I watched it. Actually, not this movie specifically, but I guess I am more burned up about the fact that I stayed up extra late to watch it. I guess the ROI is in the negative.

So, why didn’t I like this movie? Well, it was full of fluff. It had real potential. The story was interesting and there were plenty of places for the story to take a unique twist, but I guess it was like it was “phoning it in…”

I’ve always like Harrison Ford so don’t get me wrong. I just think the story got really weak at about the 1/2 point and the ending was a huge let down. I haven’t read any of the real reviews but I probably will as soon as I post this.

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what is important

First, I seriously doubt anyone is reading this. If anyone was, I’d be surprised. I had written several things and saved them as drafts, but then decided on not publishing them for one reason or another. And since it has been quite some time since I posted anything, I’ll just give you some highlights.

Also, as some of you may know, my Mom had a stroke on 11/3. Scary, scary stuff! Please go and have your blood pressure checked and while you are at it, check your cholesterol. The short version of the story about my Mom is that at this point, they don’t think there will be any permanent damage. But I know my Mom; she wouldn’t want all her ordeal posted on a webpage. If you want to hear the updates, drop me an email and I’ll include you in the distribution.

So, this has helped put some things in perspective for me. Here’s some thoughts I have been kicking around and I may write about them more in the future.

  • I am a recent Howard Stern fan. But not for the immediate and obvious reasons.
  • Honesty is the best policy. It may be a hard policy to follow, but it is the best.
  • We have a 2003 VW Eurovan. It is the greatest. Where the hell is my T5 TDI, dammit!?!?!
  • German board games are the best. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
  • Have you ridden your bike recently?
  • Spend some time over at fark.com
  • I love my hacked xbox
  • xbmc

Lifehacker is a great website:

Kraftwerk, if you know nothing about them, you had better read up on them.

I am almost caught up on sleep. Maybe… just maybe… there will be more.

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Crazy Ray.

I’ve wrestled with the fact that I am not too big on blogging about personal stuff, but I can share some of the cooler things in my life; current events, funny storys, and other oddities you can find on the internet.

Some friends of our family, when we were younger, lived in some rural place outside St. Louis. You had to drive down a long driveway to get to their house, and while you were on their driveway, you pasted this run down house. They said a guy named Crazy Ray lived there. Why was he Crazy Ray, and not something like Irriateable Ray? Good question. Apparently, Ray’s older brother played the accordion. And one of the family’s favorite pastime was to play accordion around a fire in a trash can when it was cold outside. Well, one day, Ray’s brother got too close to the fire and his accordion went up in flames. His brother died then and there as the family watched on helplessly. Now, that in itself is indeed a tragedy. And no doubt, it affected Ray in ways we can only imagine. But some of the stories that our hosts shared with us, I can’t help but think Ray had other problems and this was just another brick in the wall. Oh, btw, this happened before Ray was a teenager; he was then in his fifties when we heard these stories.

So now Ray was Crazy Ray. What kind of things did he do to deserve such a name? Well, quite a bit, actually. It seems that Ray had a problem with his arm. It looked kind of weird if you looked at it, kind of crooked. One time when he was cutting the yard, he got into a fight with a tree and broke his arm. He never went to the doctor nor had it set, so now it just looked kind of odd…

Ray used to have a dog. This dog loved to walk. In fact, there was a trail worn around Crazy Ray’s house that was rumored to be made by his crazy dog. So Ray used to walk his dog. Now, this wasn’t what you would think of as a normal walk. No, not just around the block for his dog to poop. Ray would walk his dog 20+ miles. So much did this dog walk, his pads were worn off his feet. So Ray wanted to keep going out, so he got a bike (he might have had it laying around, I don’t think he bought one just for this), and put his dog in the basket on the handlebars of the bike. Crazy Ray would ride around with his dog in the basket for 20+ miles also. Finally, the dog could no longer sit in the basket since he was sores on his bum.

So what did Ray do at this point with his dog? He ate him!