Computers

When working on a client’s Web site, while fiddling their vBulletin installation, I came across the following error message:

Talk about being redundant!

The following pages were recently useful for me:

• Alsa HOWTO: I discovered aumix was no longer available. I now use amixer instead.
• xawtv 3.88 RPM: I need v4lctl part of xawtv. It was not installed and I couldn’t find any xawtv RPM files in any repositories I use, including some third-parties. I couldn’t compile it on my box, so I searched and found this RPM which seems to be working fine in Fedora Core 5!

If you export your mail in Outlook, contained in a PST file, to an IMAP server, you’ll notice that most of the e-mails will have a winmail.dat file, of the ms-tnef MIME type, attached to each of them. That file contains the attachements of the e-mails, such as pictures or documents. To access them, I’ve found a page telling you how to make it work in Mozilla Thunderbird, and which program does the whole work.

• TNEF
• Accessing winmail.dat attachments from Mozilla on Linux

(I just did yum -y install tnef, and I got it.)

I installed Fedora Core 5 on my friend’s computer and it works just fine. I wish I could say the same for mine, on which I installed that version today, on a new hard drive I bought yesterday.

Everything is fine except that one thing that I need the most: networking. Not only connecting to the Internet, but my LAN. That computer is also used to route traffic from my wired VoIP router to and from the Internet, so I can make phone calls. I also plug another computer in that router, so it has two ways to connect on the Internet: wired and wireless. Plus, it’s a good way to connect directly to my Linux box without using my wireless router.

But no, for some reason, it decided to not work as it was in Fedora Core 3. I installed an RPM for the madwifi driver module, which supports my D-Link wireless card. I can connect, but the disconnections are so frequent, that’s you’re lucky to ping the computer next to it. Plus, the routing from the wired router barely works at any time. Obviously, for that reason, I can’t use my phone… again.

Of course, I’m trying to restart. And everytime you want to get things done right away, a file system check is always imposed at the exact same time, wasting a good half-hour of your time. Don’t try to cancel — you just have no choice to sit there and wait!

This couldn’t happen at a worst time. I want to work on my Dust project, but I wasted all my time today on trying to fix this.

And to think I said “no” to my friend today to go out somewhere with him, for this. I should have just shot myself in the leg!

I recently installed Fedora Core 5 for the first time on NoMez’s computer. So far, so good! I look forward to do the same on my computers in the near future… Meanwhile, my friend is learning to use Linux for the first time. Everybody who starts using Linux at first bitch all the time: exactly like I did. Soon enough, though, you wonder why you ever used Windows!

Here are some useful documents I’ve found filled with important notes about installing Fedora Core 5:

• Notes by Stanton Finley
• Personal guide by Mauriat Miranda

(December 17, 2006: I’ve replaced the video with the one I posted on YouTube. My Flash video player doesn’t work anymore. I also learned that one of my hosting providers, Dreamhost, offers free tools to convert your videos into Flash videos and publish them, which I’ll probably use from now on. Great alternative to YouTube! I always recommend Dreamhost to everyone.)

(August 10, 2006: This video is now also available on YouTube.)

Friends and I present at the national Japanese speech contest early this month in Toronto saw the crew of the only Japanese-spoken show we know on TV, Wai Wai Wide. We waited for them so say something about the contest on their show. Finally, three weeks after, they did. Click below to see the show!

Side note: Converting the video

It’s the first time I post a video, proudly converted into FLV format with Linux. For those interested, I’ve used ffmpeg and flvtool2 in order to do so. After having recorded the TV show (using a script which I posted recently), I typed in the following commands to convert it:


ffmpeg -i input.avi -ar 22050 -ss 00:00:49 -t 00:05:55 -r 20 -b 200 -f flv - | flvtool2 -U stdin output.flv


Finally, I’ve uploaded it to my server using scp.

Since the new Macs are powered by Intel processors, it’s really easy to imagine Windows running on their computers. Just that big jump for Apple blurred the fine line that used to exist between “IBM” PC’s and Macs, if not merged the two worlds.

People tried to make Windows XP run on an Intel Mac, and they were able to.

But what surprised me is when I learned that just this week, Mac is now providing a boot manager, Boot Camp, that now gives an “official” way to run Windows on your new Mac!

(GASP!)

A friend of mine asked me to record a show for him, since he doesn’t have a VCR. I don’t have a VCR either, and even if I did, what would be the point to record the show on tape while he can’t still play it?

The best solution is my computer. It has Linux and a TV card. I tried a few times before to record TV programs using MEncoder, but without success. This morning, I took time to try again, and I came up with a shell script that makes it work for me.

The script requires the aumix application, the xawtv package and the MPlayer package. MPlayer would only work with my standard BT878 capture card if interfaced via Video4Linux2. Furthermore, it would not change channels even if specified has -tv channel=[number] or tv://[channel]. In this case, I’m using v4lctl (part of the xawtv package) to do it. However, the later would not work until I make a xawtv configuration file, using scantv, listing all available channels on TV.

I use aumix in order to set the input channel of my mixer on the Line track.

So, here it is. Play with it!


 #!/bin/bash

# tvr: TV Recorder shell script, version 0.1
# 2006-04-05, by Remi (www.remino.net)
#
# LICENSE: This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
# Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada License. To view a copy of this license,
# visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/ca/ or send a letter to
# Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

CHANNEL=$1
VFLDEV=/dev/video0
TVOPTIONS="-tv driver=v4l2:device=$VFLDEV:normid=1:width=320:height=240"
VIDEOENC="-ovc lavc -lavcopts mbd=1:v4mv"
AUDIOENC="-oac mp3lame"
ENDPOS="-endpos $2"
FILEDATE=`date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S`
OUTPUTFILE="tv-$1-$FILEDATE.avi"
 AUMIXOPTIONS="-lR"

# The following will not work if the channels have not been scanned using scantv
# (Output of scantv must be in xawtv config file, like ~/.xawtv.)
v4lctl -c $VFLDEV setstation $1

# Makes sure the record input on the mixer is set to the Line track.
# The playback volume can be muted without problem.
aumix $AUMIXOPTIONS

mencoder $TVOPTIONS $VIDEOENC $AUDIOENC $ENDPOS tv:// -o $OUTPUTFILE

A friend of mine sent me the link below. A video game manufacturer did an arcade shooting game which has a quite unique panoramic display. We’re one step closer to the holodeck!

http://www.toysdaily.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=35902

VMWare Workstation, a famous emulator, or “virtualization program”, allows you to emulate 386-based systems.

Since a few months already, it now has a sibling which is free to download and use, the VMWare Player. The great benefit is you have the choice among a variety of virtual machines already ready on the VMWare’s Web site, or you can make your own “Virtual machines” files to be run inside the Player using free software or online utilities. (One I find particularly useful is the LiveCD Player, which allows you start a virtual machine using a physical bootable CD or an ISO image.)

Another free alternative, both as in free beer and free speech, is available: QEMU. Apparently, it works well, but unfortunately not as extensive as its closed-source counterpart. It’s the emulator providing the capability to the “Damn Small Linux” distribution to run inside Windows.

I would be interested to try the new Fedora Core 5 with it! (Look at that, they updated their logo…)

Both of the emulators mentioned above can be used in Windows and Linux. My favourite Live CD distro, Slax, has QEMU available as a module.

• VMware Player
• VMware Technology Network (VMTN)
• vmwarez.com: LiveCD Player Virtual Machine
• virtualization.info: Guide to create .vmx files for VMware Player
• EasyVMX!: .vmx Config Generator
• QEMU
• Fedora Project
• Damn Small Linux
• Slax
• Slax QEMU modules