Tag Archives: updates

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Linux Webcams

Oh boy! I’m using the Safari beta on WinXP tonight. I have to say, that I was getting tired of Firefox slowing down my Powerbook that I decided to try Safari. So far, so good. I liked it so much, I am trying the Safari beta at home. So, I’ve been busy. Things have been good and I feel like I’ve been flexing my mental muscle. I’ve been spending my last few nights trying to get webcams working under Linux. I have a cheap-o webcam and was trying to help someone set up a situation where their family from overseas can “check in” on them from time to time.Again, as in most of my projects, I don’t want to pay for software and I want to remain legit. For WinXP, I found this site to be really useful:

(ah, a bug with safari… mental note and switching back to FireFox).

This was an incredibly useful site. I found this software linked from it:

I was really impressed with YawCam. It did everything I could imagine and then some.

  • live stream
  • password protected (various users)
  • scheduling
  • logging
  • tweaks

If you are running Windows, I’d recommend using that. It was really great. But, I wanted to take it further. I have an old Dell Laptop running Ubuntu. I’ll write a much more comprehensive post later about all the different options I found, but in the meantime, I have come to love Motion:

Motion For Linux

I ended up building it from source, (which was a pain in the ass getting all the right dpkg’s installed). But it is slick. Ken is my new hero:

  • Kenneth Lavrsen’s Web Cameras

The tar.gz Ken distributes has config files that are outdated. It took me a little while to figure that out, but if you read the wiki, then you should be able to figure it out. Maybe I’ll release my configs.

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A guest post…

I’m not typically one to promote myself shamelessly, but I do consider it an honor in some regards.   I recently had a guest post on the Earthlink blog, Earthling.    This is my personal blog, not related to Earthlink in any way and is my own commentary.  However, the post is work related.

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Official Mio Map Updates…. finally!

It’s all over the forums, yet some details are still to be decided:

Question: How often do you update your maps and how are they made available to customers?

Answer:
Limited Time Offer!

Mio DigiWalker™ C310x Map Update

As our way of saying “thank you” to those people who helped put Mio Technology on the map, Mio Technology is offering a special map update promotion to our valued Mio DigiWalker™ C310x users.

This map update will allow you to upgrade the firmware of your C310x device as well as update the map data.

This upgrade will deliver improved road position accuracy, improved “one way street” notifications, newly added streets and addresses, and improved routing in rural areas and more.

For a limited time, Mio DigiWalker C310x owners will be able to receive this special upgrade offer for the special price of $14.95 + $9.95 shipping and handling. This special update pricing will also be available for a limited time at participating Circuit City locations.

Mio Technology will begin taking orders for the C310x map update DVD on July 16, 2007 on the Mio Technology web site, www.mio-tech.com. Offer dates and availability details at participating Circuit City locations to be announced soon.

Rumor also has it there is a firmware update, but the debate is if it is an upgrade to Win CE 5 or really just a firmware.  Regardless, $15 is pretty reasonable if you ask me.


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multiple updates on various junk

I’ve been busy. It’s been good and I see progress being made. I see the light at the end of the tunnel. So, this post is going to be a mini-update to a bunch of stuff I got in the hopper.

Tmobile Wing

Man, I love this thing. Today I put new skins on it, and installed some really great apps. I’ll provide a more detailed post on it. Going from PalmOS to WM6 was painless and easy. I almost don’t even think of it. I miss on flash card program but other than that, I don’t think I’ll ever go back to a Palm-based phone.

XMBC on the Xbox

My brother-in-law is really happy with his hacked Xbox. We watched all sorts of international TV this weekend. I found this after poking around. Why hadn’t I found it before?

I found some great games I am playing on my Xbox. ChessMaster was really hard to find:

Trixbox

I am getting a lot of hits on my website for Trixbox related things. I hope you guys are finding it helpful. I’d love to hear some feedback.

Continue reading →

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Will my Tmobile Wing replace my iPod?

Actually, no, it won’t replace my iPod but it will see more time with me. If you’ve been reading along, I got a Tmobile Wing. I love it. I’ve been a Treo user, (from a 600 to a 650) and have been a Palm user since my first Palm V. So going to a Windows Mobile based phone is something different, but not so much so. In my other posts about my Mio c310x, you’ll see that the Mio runs Windows CE. Therefore, I already have some experience.

A couple of the things I like about my iPod is Podcasts and being able to listen to stuff in the car while in transit to and from work. Since my commute is roughly +/- 30 minutes, I typically take that time to listen to a language podcast or do some language lessons. If you’ve seen my other posts about that, you’ll learn that I am also trying to learn German.

But at my PC or my Mac at work, I love listening to live music. Live in the sense that I am listening to streaming music; Internet radio. There is some sort of connection I feel when I am listening to someone else “talking to me.” The iPod doesn’t let me have that connection that I get when I am listening to something online. I thought about getting the FM transmitter for my iPod but who the hell wants to listen to FM when I’ve been spoiled by satellite? *shudder*

I have also gotten into the habit of listening to German audio when I am in bed going to sleep. I’ve read about how the mind absorbs information and processes it while you sleep. I also read that listening to foreign languages often will subconsciously help you with word order and pronunciation. Could be snake oil, but what the heck. Since the iPod has a sleep timer, it was easy to set it to shut off after 30 minutes. But the lack of frequent updates of the Podcasts and the level I am at helped contribute to an amount of boredom with the content on my iPod. I started to listen to music and not practice my language skills.

Now, on the Wing, it has Windows Media Player on it. And I didn’t sign up for a data plan since it is WiFi enabled and I have at least two AP’s at any given time. I’ve found the data connection via WiFi to be more than satisfactory since many of the WAP or Mobile enabled sites I go to have way less ads on them so web browsing from the device is pretty good.

More importantly, WMP is great at streaming online content. I started off testing with my old standby’s and moved to the holy grail for me; 24 hour streaming German news. It works and it works well. I didn’t experience too much rebuffering and with the USB-style headset/headphones that came with the Wing, the audio was quite good.

I was really excited to go to bed, listening to “live” content and in German. It work so well. In fact, I dreamt that I was in Germany and was having a hard time understanding what people were saying. It was a great, lucid dream that I found very encouraging. One of the high points was that I was in the library and they were selling beer inside; what a great idea!

So, with the Wing, I have to say that I still like it. The only drawbacks I have encountered thus far is that it appears WM5 and WM6 are different enough that not all applications work or that I don’t know all the shortcuts yet. Being able to make SIP calls with my home Trixbox PBX is really slick.

No, the Wing will not replace my iPod… but I think for what each device does, they certainly compliment each other with what I want to do, and that results in a product that makes ME happy.

Streaming Online radio that makes me happy:

Mobile / WAP websites that make me happy:

Mind resources:

I’ll post more Wing/WM6 updates as I learn and come up with stuff.

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i’d love to be your realtor!

Did you ever see those magnetic signs people have on their cars if they’re a Realtor? I have to laugh whenever I see one since I think of it like those huge inflatable gorillas or dinosaurs car dealers have:

Oh hey, that car dealer has a big inflatable gorilla… I think I’ll buy a car from them…

i’d love to be your realtor!

Anyways, I passed my Post License exam with what I think you’d call a “B.” I’ll take it. I took the class online and really enjoyed it. It was full of a good amount of real practical information that happens to be very applicable to my situation. So, yeah, I guess I’d love to be your Realtor. I’ll plug my broker:

I’m not on the website yet since I haven’t given them a picture yet.

I just wanted to post an update since I actually had a few people ask me about the follow up to this post:

Thanks!

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trixbox update to 2.2, part II

If you read my post last night regarding my upgrade to Trixbox 2.2, you’ll see that I was back up and running before going to bed.  It was late, and at first I thought that my upgrade went well, but I was a little disappointed to see that my UI didn’t look exactly like it did in the video.  Something didn’t look right, but I didn’t get any errors.  Upon a re-read of the forum, I realized that it looks like I upgraded the OS to the latest version, but not the UI and who knows what else.

From the forums, it appears that there are a lot of successful installs, and the degree of success depends on exactly what version/build of Trixbox you were running.  For what ever reason, I have to run the following commands to get completely updated:

  1. yum clean
  2. yum make cache
  3. yum install -y tbm-GUIcore.noarch

Now, everything looks like it should in as compared to the video on the Trixbox website.   I’ll do a reboot just to be safe.
Alas, now I am getting errors when I try to load the packages list.  This is also reported in the above mentioned thread.

Warning: fread(): Length parameter must be greater than 0. in /var/www/html/maint/includes/functions/genYumArray.php on line 21

Warning: fread(): Length parameter must be greater than 0. in /var/www/html/maint/includes/functions/genYumArray.php on line 196

A bug and fix were submitted.  Sure enough, I was missing three of the files on this page:

That indeed, fixed it.

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Time to upgrade Trixbox to 2.2 tonight

I’ve mentioned recently that Trixbox released their final 2.2 version. I’m running 2.1 and have been enjoying a great amount of success with that version. If it ain’t broke, do I need to fix it? I’ve always been on the bleeding edge of things so my gut says yeah, I need to upgrade. It’s a real problem for me. I always need to try the latest firmware, software, version of whatever I have. Sometimes it has gotten me into trouble, (with my wife), but it will just gnaw away at me until I do something about. That’s the case with the recent release of Trixbox 2.2. I’ve been watching the forums and I believe tonight is the night to make the jump.

(gawd, I hate that Rhapsody’s Comcast client takes FOREVER to load; don’t they know I am trying to stuff while listening to some ‘tunes!?!?!?)

So, anyways, here’s what’s new in 2.2:

Some of the things I like is the “dashboard” that is the first thing you’d see when logging as ‘admin.’ The UI looks pretty sweet. On my existing system, I catch a memory leak from time to time that affects my system’s performance, so I like being able to see that sort of info on the front page. The Web UI to administrate the network will help a lot of people who may not know how to configure network interfaces. My setup isn’t typical for most home users. You can read about it here.

The update instructions can be found in the Trixbox forums:

You can NOT run trixbox-update.sh to upgrade to 2.2!!!

Upgrade via the package manager by installing tbm-GUICore or by running yum update at the command line.

I picked the “yum update” route. Man, I wished I made a backup before I started. I had to update 177 packages at 225MB.

You see, here’s my problem. I can really only work on this stuff at home when everyone is in bed. It’s already midnight and if the family wakes up to an inoperable phone system, we might as well put in the order for a new land line; shudder! But, the downloads are flying by, this may not be too bad. Might be time to refresh my Vodka. In case you are interested, I use VNC to admin my boxes from my WinXP system upstairs; the UNIX and Linux boxes are in the basement.

While this is continuing to download, I feel like we finally have a chance to talk. You know what pisses me off? Here’s a list (unrelated to the the actual update):

  • People who don’t put shopping cars back into the cart coral at supermarket parking lots. You are one lazy mo-fo.
  • People talking on cell phones in high speed, high density traffic. Get a headset, dumbass.
  • News reporters (on TV) who use their hands too much when giving a report. By the way, does it really make a story more interesting if you are standing outside of closed office of something you are doing the piece about? Lame.

I could go on, but the downloads are almost finished. Let me refresh my drink while it finishes up. Oh man, 385 packages are now being updated! How painless will this be??? The updates are done. I am going to make the assumption that I need to reboot. I hope it comes back up!

It came up, but if I went to a web browser, it looked like the older version. What did I miss? If I go to Asterisk menu, I am getting MySQL errors like the password is wrong. However, if I go to the “Asterisk Info” page, it appears with the UI seen in the video.

[nativecode=Access denied for user 'asteriskuser'@'localhost' (using password: YES)] ** mysql://asteriskuser:XXXXXXXXXX@localhost/asterisk

This requires more investigation! I had changed the default password when I initially set all of this up, but I can’t remember what the original password was for the user.

I couldn’t find it anywhere on the web and I couldn’t log it, so I tried installing phpwebadmin, specifically tbm-phpmyadmin.noarch. I was able to reset the password to the one I had specified in:

  • /etc/asterisk/manager.conf

I rebooted once I reset the password. After the reboot, I was able to call out okay, but it was too late to try calling in, (and risk waking up the boss). So far so good.

I had installed Munin manually last go around, but now when I tried to access it via the TB interface, I got a spewload of errors. Small potatoes. I’ll worry about it later.

I’m wiped out so off to bed… and more later as I delve into this project.

EDIT: Part II of this can be found here: Trixbox Upgrade part II

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mother, did it need to be so high?

Today was one of those surreal days where it takes some time to sink in. This week has been and is going to be busy since all of our children have last days of school and end of year parties. As it is, I’ve volunteered at my son’s luau on Thursday. I don’t know what to expect but I love working with children so I am looking forward to it.

The surreal stuff, is sort of hard to explain. I rear-ended a Hispanic lady in the morning after she slammed on her brakes for a lame brained reason, (no real damage it was a love tap), I got some good feedback from someone I look up to, I heard good things about myself from another person, I had to leave work early since my wife was really sick, I talked for about two hours with a Polish neighbor and walked away with some Polish cookies and showed him my framed picture of Papiez Jan Paweł II, and then I spent a fair amount of time working on my blog.

Just before this writing session, VH1 was showing “Pink Floyd, The Wall.” I had seen this almost 30 times when I was younger and Midnight Movies were the cool thing to do. Sometimes, I feel like Bob Geldof in the movie. If you’ve seen this movie, you can relate to what I am saying.

I have been busy. I have finished my Real Estate Post license class the other night and am merely waiting to take my final exam. I also got a lot of work done on my blog over the last two days since I finished my online class.I’m pretty wiped out, so I am going to go eat some Melba toast and go to bed.

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housekeeping

Tonight, my wife is out with her best friends and I am alone… after getting the kids to bed. I don’t know why, but when she is gone, I tend to catch up on some of the techie stuff I keep meaning to do.

For example, I spent a fair amount of time trying to find ways to optimize the performance of my blog and research themes and plugins for wordpress. Tomorrow, I plan to yank out an extra sound card from our PC since it’s making like difficult for my wife since the USB headset we have just doesn’t… sorry, didn’t mean to rant here.

Anyways, I usually take the kids to the closest Fry’s for a look-a-round but I am not sure if that’s in the cards for this weekend since we have a lot of other stuff to do. Starting with this post, I’m going to “tag” it so in addition to the categories, the tags will help you find related posts faster.

Later, I might post about what I found to be the most popular WordPress plugins. I found some cool ones that seem to make life just a little easier and I found a few that everyone seems to be using.

Have a good weekend!