The Rantings and Ravings of a Madgeek

Streaming from a Mac to a PS3

2010-07-26T09:28:00.001-05:00

I set out not too long ago researching building an HTPC so that I could watch the many movies and TV shows I have on my computer on my TV. I looked in to several options until I realized that I have a PS3 hooked up to that computer - why would I need anything else?

My requirements are basically that the software be very easy to use on the PS3 end of things, and that it transcode from the multitude of formats and codecs I have on my computer (so that I don't need to worry about which codec to download) to one of the supported PS3 formats. I want to be able to watch 1080p quality videos without too much degredation as well.

There are several programs out there (free and pay) that will stream PS3 supported formats, but that would require me to re-encode everything that I have that isn't supported (and the PS3 has pretty poor support for most things, and zero support for .mkv files).

For programs it pretty much boils down to 2 options, one free, the other is $30. The $30 option is Nullriver's Medialink, and the free option is PS3 Media Server - a program that runs on Java. I figured Java would give the software unacceptable overhead so I went with Medialink to start with.

Medialink is very simple and easy to use - basically start it up, point it at the directories you want to share and set your connection speed (for quality). It starts up, and appears on the PS3 XMB. Works very well - or at least it did long enough for me to purchase it. There appears to be a bug between it and the latest PS3 firmware that causes the videos to stop playing after about 10 minutes. I could not find a way around this at all no matter what I tried. Nullriver did not respond to my support request and at this point I consider it a waste of $30. Until the problems are fixed, I would not recommend this software (version 2.0b8).

After the failure of this software I decided to go to PS3 Media Server. I had originally tried this software before going with Medialink but I could not get it to connect to the PS3 consistently (stupid error on my part I found out later). With Medialink off the board I was pretty much forced back to this and quite frankily I'm glad I was. I downloaded the latest Beta version (which had support for dual processer transcoding) and installed it.

PS3 Media Server itself is not the prettiest to look at, and there are tons of different configuration options - it gives you full control over how the transcoding and streaming function, but can be a little unwieldy. You should be fine leaving the settings alone and just setting the directories you want to pull from.

Now, after I installed it I ran in to the same issue as before - sometimes it would see the PS3, sometimes it wouldn't on startup. What was happening was it was selecting one of the virtual network interfaces that VMware Fusion had set up instead of the wired connection of 'en0'. I had to manually change the default interface it used in the general settings tab. Once I did that and restarted it, the PS3 instantly came up.

Since I am using a wired gigabit connection from my Mac to the PS3, I set the transcode settings to "lossless" and turned on the dual core transcoding in the "Mencoder" settings. I switched back over to the "Status" tab, and fired up the 1080p BBC's "Planet Earth" episode about Mountains (lots of high contrast, fine detail shots with movement) that I use for reference, and let it run, watching the buffer size on my computer. It looked amazing on my TV, with almost no transcoding introduced pixelation. There was some slight stuttering during some of the highly contrasted shots with movement, but I found if I paused the movie for even 25 seconds at the very beginning, there would be enough transcoded buffer to handle anything - and this is your outer limit of quality, most blu-ray movie rips aren't quite as contrasty.

So, in the end, I'm glad that Medialink gave me some problems because it just wasn't quite as good as PS3 Media Server. As well, PS3 Media Server updates relatively often - and if you like it please consider donating to them.

Working from the command line - GoogleCL

2010-07-13T11:03:00.001-05:00

One might say "To what end would you use GoogleCL?" - and they'd have a very valid point. One can not deny the allure of doing something for the sake of being nerdy, but I've found that there is much more that GoogleCL offers.

At work, due to a somewhat draconian (and selectively enforced) IT policy I'm not able to access a variety of things that I use, namely Google Calendar set up through my Apps domain. Things like web-browsing, email, twitter, and IM are also restricted via the time tested method of shoulder surfing.

Now, my job also entails doing 95% of my work through various command line and shell utilities, so an extra SSH window open does not arouse anyones notice - and therein lies my secret: I do everything I need and want through an SSH session to my iMac at home.

This post will talk about how I have GoogleCL set up to provide me with information at my fingertips that I can use.

First, and primarily what I use GoogleCL for is the for integration with the Calendar portion of Google Apps (or Google Calendar if you don't use Apps). Adding an event is dead simple in its most basic form:

# google calendar add "Some Event at That One Place tomorrow from 6pm to 7pm"

This will add an event tomorrow called "Some Event" located at "That One Place" tomorrow from 6pm to 7pm in your default Calendar.

If you want to add an event to a specific calendar, just append the command with --cal="Calendar Name"

This becomes more useful as when I log in to my session, I'm greeted with the upcoming 24 hours worth of appointments set up in my Google Calendar:

[Calendar]
Lunch with Bob at Sushi Train,Jul 13 12:00 - Jul 13 13:00

[Football Schedule]

[On Call]
On call,Jul 13 18:00 - Jul 14 00:00
iShock:~ user$

How I have this set up is, in my .profile I have it calling a text file that is written to every hour with the google command for todays events via the crontab.

I've called the script gcal.script and it very simply just calls google calendar today for all my calendars, and writes it to a text file:

google calendar today --cal=.* > ~/MainDownloads/commandline_tools/synced_cal.txt

The --cal=.* is a regular expression to capture all calendars.

This script is called by a cron entry every hour:

#download google calendar to file for .profile
0 * * * *       ~/MainDownloads/commandline_tools/gcal.script

And .profile is set to echo the file that is created whenever a new session is established (If you are on Linux, you'll likely put this in your .bash_profile in your home directory):

#google calendar for next 24 hours
echo "Calendar for the next 24 hours:"
cat ~/MainDownloads/commandline_tools/synced_cal.txt

Hope this has been has been helpful. Later I'll go in to how I use screen to put all the various programs I need in to one terminal window, that maintains state if I lose my session.

Have fun!

Capital One woes

2009-05-23T12:28:00.002-05:00

I have a Capital One credit card, and I love it. Low interest rate, works really well. I only have one beef that has cropped up recently. My spending habit isn't very erratic, and it looks something like this during the month:
Amazon
iTunes
Restaurant
Amazon
Restaurant

Now, for the last two months, I've gotten several of the restaurant purchases flagged as fraud, and the card locked down until I call them and sit on hold for 2 hours to say that Yes, that purchase at Earls that I make every month is in fact my purchase. Please unlock my card so I can use it and pay you money.

Now, I appreciate the fraud response, and I understand the reasoning behind it, but when you are flagging purchases that fall precisely in my usual spending habits, there is a problem with your algorithm.

Second beef, when you lock my card down, I can no longer use the website to review my purchases so I can't see if there is suddenly something that I didn't authorize on my account. No, I have to call you, and have you read the charges back to me. One of these days I'm going to buy something like "Anal sex 4, horses for courses" just so the clerk has to read it back to me.

Lotus Notes, Bane of my Existence

2009-05-12T14:46:00.001-05:00

I'm not sure how one piece of software can be so widely used, and yet so terrible. The list of issues with this program are nearly endless.

First off, my biggest grief: Scrolling. I use the mousewheel, and Home/End religiously to scroll in every application I've used since the Microsoft Mouse first came out with a scroll wheel. Scrolling down in notes works as you would expect, I scroll down one 'click' of the mouse it scrolls 5 lines worth of text. The issue is in when I scroll up one click, this is how it works:

First click - 2 lines

Second click - .5 lines

Third click - 1 line

then it repeats this pattern, although it seems like 3/4ths of the scrolls are between .5 and 1 line. It literally takes 30 full circles of the scroll wheel to scroll up a page of any length. And it works the same with arrow keys. The only way to scroll without making me want to kill someone, is to use the scrollbars on the side, but even THEN I can't use the top and bottom buttons, I have to use the bar in the middle.

Second Grief: I installed the latest release of Notes because I thought maybe they would fix this issue.. turns out they didn't, but what they did do is completely remove a feature I used constantly. You can no longer right click a tab or a link in notes, and have it open in a new window. The feature is completely gone. Have two monitors? Too bad.

Third Grief: This may be more down to our implimentation of notes, but it's SLOW. Even on a mid range server, the thing is a dog. And that's on site.. if you are remote? Expect to wait between 2 and 5 minutes between each click to get a refresh.

Anyway, that's the rant of the day.

VNC Server for the iPhone/iPod Touch

2008-10-21T11:39:00.008-05:00

How cool is this? There is a new app on the Cydia installer named Veency. This gives you a VNC server on the iphone, letting you use your desktop to input stuff to your iphone. This is especially handy, if like me, you've had to restore your phone to jailbreak it. This makes inputing things like the 5 email accounts I had on it very simple. Check it out:

Kind of cool, right? It's simple to install. Just open up Cydia and search for 'Veency'. Install it, restart springboard, and connect with your favorite VNC Client (Using the IP address found in the WiFi setup area).

Note to Mac users: You will want to download 'Chicken of the VNC', as the inbuilt Screen Sharing app won't be able to connect, nor will Apples 'Remote Desktop' app.

To use it: Left click is a standard 'tap', right click is the Home button, middle click is the power button, and holding the left button down and moving your mouse is like dragging your finger across the screen in the direction you move you mouse.

Bonus points for 'Ninja Magic': You can set up Jaadu on your iPhone, connect to your computer, then connect back to your phone. See if you can destroy the space-time continuum!

Bad Captchas

2008-10-18T11:34:00.002-05:00

So, as I was updating a few options for my blog (including moving the domain to blog.shockwaver.org) it naturally asked me to complete a CAPTCHA. Normally this isn't a problem, even the newer double CAPTCHAs that aim to help optical character recognition. But Blogger, I've never seen a captcha this bad. I guess it means I'm a computer:

Updates

2008-10-04T12:39:00.003-05:00

A few small changes have been made to the blog. I've removed the digsby chat widget on the right column, as I'm no longer using Digsby for IM (It being Windows only). I've also moved the blog to my own domain (shockwaver.org). That won't change anything except that the blog can be reached from blog.shockwaver.org.

Thanks for reading!

HOWTO: Quickly toggle function keys on and off on OS X

2008-07-08T19:08:00.003-05:00

Let me say that I love using the Mac, it works great and runs really well. For the most part. I like using the apple keyboard because I like all the special keys for controlling iTunes and what not. However, being that I don't have the 'aluminum' keyboard that has a function key, I've noticed that in order to use the special keys, I have to go in to Settings, go in to keyboard, and manually check or uncheck the option. This was driving me crazy, as quite often I need to use the terminal, and mc (midnight commander) via ssh to a linux machine - which needs the F keys to work as F keys.

Luckily, all is not lost! Thanks to applescript, we can toggle the option using script file. Open up 'Script Editor' and use this script:

tell application "System Preferences"
    set current pane to pane "com.apple.preference.keyboard"
end tell


tell application "System Events"
    if UI elements enabled then
        tell tab group 1 of window "Keyboard & Mouse" of process "System Preferences"
            click checkbox "Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys"
        end tell
    else
        tell application "System Preferences"
            activate
            set current pane ¬
                to pane "com.apple.preference.universalaccess"
            display dialog ¬
                "UI element scripting is not enabled. Check \"Enable access for assistive devices\""
        end tell
    end if
end tell

tell application "System Preferences"
    quit
end tell

This means, when you run the script, it will open the system preferences menu (without making it active), set the option, and close it again. Now, in order to make this useful, we need a way to associate this with a hotkey. So, we need to get the program Spark. This will let you set any hotkey you want to any thing else you want. Once you download it and it opens, you'll add a new hotkey for AppleScript, pick the key (I use F19), and point it to the applescript file (or just use the code above).

Once it is saved, everything is set up and ready to go! Happy terminal-ing!

Must have OS X (Leopard) Applications

2008-07-02T22:46:00.004-05:00

These are the apps that I've dug up and installed, and use constantly.

1. Adium - Best IM program by far I've ever used.. although Digsby (Windows) is damn good.. if only Adium had support for the blog widget I use on the left column.

2. VMware Fusion - I've used Fusion, and I've used Parallels and after a while, I decided on Fusion. I need this to run XP for the 2 or 3 apps that I simply -have- to use (Support apps for my job). The thing I love about Fusion (and I know Parallels has it) is Unity mode, so I don't ever see an XP desktop, just the apps I'm using.

3. Transmission - Best Mac BitTorrent client that exists so far, in my humble opinion. Until I stumbled on this, I was using Vuze (Azureus), and it is bloated and big. Transmission is tiny, does all the bandwidth stuff I need, and runs really fast.

4. Firefox - Need I say more?

5. Gimp - Photo Editor: I cut my teeth on this when I was in Linux full time, and I love it for quick photo edits (scale, crop, file type change, etc).

6. Simultron - HTML Editor: In Windows I used Notepad++, which I adore, but instead of throwing it in VM, I found this little app. It works really well, has good syntax highlighting, and handles CSS. Perk, it also shows a mini-preview of the page as you edit.

7. Shades - This little application controls the brightness of the screen by putting a black (or really, any color you want) over the screen. This is good because by default, the iMac display is WAY TO FREAKING BRIGHT. I realize Steve Jobs has a Jesus complex, but I don't need to feel like I'm staring at the Light of God(tm) when I turn my machine on.

Backups Galore

2008-07-02T22:40:00.002-05:00

Call me paranoid, but I like to back things up. I've lost too many files over the years not to anymore. This is where Time Machine comes in handy. I've already mentioned how easy it is to set up, but I went a step further. Not only does my entire machine back up every hour to my external hard drive, I've just set up my linux machine to back up my development folder each night. It's the same schedule I was using previously - Incremental back up every night, and a full backup once a week, while keeping 3 full backups, and 18 incremental backups.

My linux machine, while getting much less use these days is still an effective web server, and an effective backup machine. Not only does it back itself up, it also backs up mine, and my wifes machine. Hopefully we won't need them, but you never know!

Backing up is fun!

Go Mac

2008-06-27T10:34:00.004-05:00

So now I have a new iMac, 20". I love it so far. I'm running VMWare Fusion with Windows XP Pro in Unity mode, so I've got seamless access to any windows programs I may need (such as the support software my company uses). I've just got the base model iMac, but I've upped the RAM to 4GB, and tacked on a 1TB external Firewire800 hard drive.

And holy crap is Time Machine easy to use and damn cool. Just plug in the drive (I partitioned a 300gb space for time machine), and pick the partition you want to use, and it starts backing up. No other input needed. I already had incrimental backups set up with my Linux server, but this is just dead simple. What I think I will do is keep using Time Machine to backup everything on the machine, and "mission critical" stuff will be backed up to my Linux machine nightly as well. Nothing like multiple backups.

I've pulled the 20" LG monitor from my Dell machine, and am using it along side the Mac. I wish linux was as easy to set up for dual monitors. I plugged it in, it turned on and was already at the right resolution - just had to adjust the location of the display for continuity. I love having 3360x1050 total desktop space. It makes me a glad panda.

I'm still tweaking things and copying over stuff from my old machine, but once I do that I'll drop a few more articles on here about various cool apps that I've found, and what they do.

Fedex

2008-06-23T07:18:00.002-05:00

I believe all Fedex trucks should have an interactive GPS so that I can watch my package drive across the US. I may be a bit compulsive with my tracking though..

http://xkcd.com/281/

HOWTO: Fedora 9 on a USB Drive

2008-05-22T16:32:00.003-05:00

So, I've been doing a bit of reading on Fedora 9, as it's been a few years since I've used fedora (Circa.. Core 2, and before that Red Hat 9) and it seems like there is a very easy, and interesting way to install what amounts to a persistent LiveCD version to a USB flash drive. I've done it, and it seems to work ok. Boot time is comparable with a vanilla hard-drive install, a bit slower, but really not noticeable on my AMD X2, 4gb RAM machine. I re purposed a 2gb stick I had lying around, but you can use as little as a 1gb if you like.

1. First step is to download the .iso file you want to use (from: http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora). You need to choose the liveCD version that suites you needs (x86, or x64) - and the type you want. You can choose between the KDE and the Gnome version. The KDE version uses KDE4, which is nice if you want to try it out.

2. Go to https://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator and download the liveusb-creator zip file, extract to your preferred location and run it. You should come with a screen like so:

3. Hit browse, find your .iso file, then set your target drive (your plugged in USB stick).

4. Next, set your overlay size. The full install should take about 700mb or so, and I set mine to 1gb to be on the safe side. You should be able to access the remainder of the data on the drive via fedora and windows without a problem.

5. Wait for it to complete.

6. Reboot! When your machine is booting, you will need to choose to have it boot from the USB drive. Some systems it's in the bios, others (like my dell), you need hit F12 and choose to boot from the usb drive.

It should boot up in to Fedora at this point! I'm going to spend a bit more time playing around with it (such as figuring out how to set up my ATI card in it) and then I'll post some more info.

As always, leave comments and let me know how it worked for you.

Lack of Updates

2008-05-21T11:24:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the distinct lack of updates, those of you that check back in from time to time. I've been extremely busy with work - and thus have had very little time for tinkering with my various electronics. I'll try to start updating this again regularly, but it boils down to finding interesting things.

iPhone/iPod Touch Cydia Application

2008-04-01T13:29:00.002-05:00

So, I stumbled on a new app today: Cydia (http://www.saurik.com/id/1) - Basically, this is a port of the Debian APT system to the iPhone. From my early uses of it, it seems to work really well. The link I provided above explains more indepth about why it is better then the Installer.app, but they work well together I've found. My biggest reason for this is because it does a much much better job of porting over bash and all the accompanying tools. The shells all work properly, and there are -tons- of various command line apps that you can install to turn this handy little device in to a mobile unix platform. In addition, it includes a port of Java as well as an implementation of X/11. I've yet to try the X/11 yet, as I believe it needs to be routed to an external X server, but still, could be quite useful.

I highly recommend picking this package up. It's under Utilities in the Installer.app, listed as Cydia Packager.

HOWTO: Graphical Port Blocker for Linux (A la PeerGuardian)

2008-03-27T13:25:00.006-05:00

For those of you that run linux, and have been clamoring for an easy way to use blocklists like if you were using PeerGuardian for windows, this is a simple howto on how to do it.

Install the iplist package (which comes with the IPblock GUI) from here: sourceforge

The application will install to Applications -> Internet -> IPblock
Or, you can run it via terminal in GUI mode thusly:

sudo ipblock -g

Which will give you this window:

Simply hit the enable button to run things in default mode. If you want a bit more control, you can go to the Lists view:

And select what lists you want. By default it includes all these shown. These are the lists generated by the much loved/hated www.bluetack.co.uk people. I'll leave it to you to do the research on weither or not you want to use these guys. Suffice to say they are the most popular list crew right now.

As for settings:

I'd ensure that autostart is checked, as well as incoming and outgoing connections. The rest are up to you and fairly self explainatory.

---

That being said, if, like me, you run your linux box as a headless torrent client you can run ipblock like so:

chris@ubuShock:~$ sudo ipblock
IPblock 0.18
Copyright (C) 2007 Serkan Sakar 

Usage: ipblock [options]

Options:
-s     start blocking
-d     stop blocking
-r     restart IPblock
-u     update lists
-c     convert lists to ipl format
-g     start IPblock GUI
-l     show status
-v     show version and exit
-h     show this help
chris@ubuShock:~$ sudo ipblock -s
chris@ubuShock:~$

It won't give any confirmation, but you can check to make sure it is working with

sudo ipblock -l

Happy downloading!

If it worked for you, please drop me a comment.

Disclaimer: Naturally, I do not condone downloading things illegally. If you download copywritted work, you are breaking the law. You should support the publishers of the works you are downloading.

White Noise

2008-03-18T15:40:00.002-05:00

Those of you that are like me and need some background noise while you work will appreciate this website:
http://whitenoisemp3s.com/

I strongly encourage you to visit and purchase one of these sound files. They are a bargain at $5 a pop. Just listen to the samples - The rain on the river one is my personal favorite. Nothing relaxes the mind quite like a thunderstorm (With the added bonus of not frying my computer if lightning hits too close). These sounds are truly awesome.

HOWTO: Google Site Search

2008-03-18T10:20:00.002-05:00

This is a very simple and basic howto, but not many people know about it. If you (like the rest of the world) use google as your search engine, and (like me) want a way to use the stellar search algorithms on any page all you need to do is use the tag "site:" in your search. This is especially useful for searching forums, as the vast majority of forums have really dismal search functions.

So, for example - to search ubuntuforums.org for "ati drivers" this would be your google query:

ati drivers site:ubuntuforums.org

Simple right? This is the output:

Price!Pinx

2008-03-06T11:06:00.003-06:00

Found via Lifehacker

Ever found yourself religiously checking a website to see if a price has dropped? Well no more! At least that is what is claimed by a new website called Price!Pinx - What it does is, you browse to the website with a price, highlight the $xxx.xx and click a bookmark. Price!Pinx adds it to your watch list, and it monitors that value. If it drops, it sends you an email alert. Does it work? Don't know, it seemed to detect the price I highlighted properly, but as it's only been a few hours, the price hasn't had a chance to fall. I'll keep this updated with information as I find it.

Damn cool iPod Touch/iPhone app

2008-03-05T19:42:00.000-06:00

Naturally this requires a jailbroken ipod/phone:
http://www.touchpadpro.com/2008/03/introducing-touchpad-pro.html

This is seriously cool. Using my touch as a touchpad? Oh hell yes. It works really well from my playing with it. If you have a jailbroken iThing, then you need this app.

Update: I've been using this app now for a good day or so, and I absolutely love it. A lot of the apps on my ipod right now are more... gimmick then useful. They are neat to have but I don't use them very often. I've found this is actually easier to use then my full size mouse when I'm doing just some light web browsing, and with the remote mode I've got it set up to control iTunes/VLC.

For those of you that are curious, it's relatively easy to do. VLC is controllable by the keyboard so all you need is to switch to remote mode and use the 'Space' button to play/pause (Great if like me you have your computer wired to the tv in the other room).

As for iTunes, it is slightly more involved as iTunes doesn't support global hotkeys, but that is easily remedied with a third party app: iTunesControl - What I've done is set the hotkeys for next/previous song to be CTRL+left/right Arrow, so I just hit the ctrl button on the remote, and press the arrow keys. Easy!

IE8 Beta Released

2008-03-05T18:29:00.000-06:00

So, the IE8 beta is released today (from here). I downloaded it (begrudgingly let it over-write my IE7 install) and rebooted. The interface is like the spawn of IE6 and IE7. Surprisingly (and I don't expect this to survive the beta) they have added a "Emulate IE7" button. My only grief with it is that you need to restart IE completely before it will take effect.

From what I can tell, it -does- pass the Acid2 test (although it remains to be seen if it codes specifically for the acid test, that is beyond my ability to know):
As for Acid 3?

Fail. Now, to be fair, Firefox 3 doesn't render it completely either, but it does get up to 60/100 on my install, and you can actually tell it is a bar gradient, etc.

HOWTO: Run IE6 and IE7 together

2008-03-05T12:11:00.000-06:00

If you have ever had the need to test a website in both crappy versions of IE, and you've got IE7 installed, this will help you. Just head over to evolt - Download the IE6 binary, extract it to a folder and run it. Simple.

HOWTO: Dual Monitors in Linux with ATI

2008-03-05T11:25:00.000-06:00

After searching for many hours and finding many different howtos that didn't work for me, I thought I'd post what I found actually worked in my case. Note, with the ATI cards in particular in linux, it seems like even the same cards using the same driver versions work differently, so this may not work for you. But unlike a lot of the howtos I've seen, this isn't destructive. This will also assume you have installed the latest version of the ATI proprietary drivers.

My problem in particular was that I'm using two monitors of different sizes and resolutions. It seems like it is easy enough to have two of the same size/resolution monitors. Anyway, I'm running a 20.1" screen as my main with a 1680x1050 resolution, and my secondary is a 17" with 1280x1024 resolution, I also have them set so the secondary monitor is to the left of the main monitor.

ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR xorg.conf FILE BEFORE EDITTING IT!!!! I CAN NOT STRESS THAT ENOUGH - It is possible these changes will cause X to not start and you will need to restore the backup.

cd /etc/X11/
cp xorg.conf xorg.conf.backup

Anyway, If you haven't yet configured the main monitor properly, you need to run

aticonfig --initial

That will change your xorg.config file to add the various ATI stuff. There is a way to use the aticonfig command to setup the dual monitors, but I never was able to get Big Desktop to work properly with it. I'd have two monitors, but they'd be separate (IE, I couldn't move windows from one to the other).

Once aticonfig has set up your xorg.conf file, you need to open it up in your favorite text editor and add these lines to the device section that ATI set up. If your xorg.conf file is as sloppy as mine, you may have several "device" sections, so you are looking for this one:

Section "Device"
     Identifier      "aticonfig-Device[0]"
     Driver          "fglrx"
     Option          "VideoOverlay"  "on"
     Option          "OpenGLOverlay" "off"
EndSection

The important part to look for is the "aticonfig-Device[0]" - this tells you that this is the ATI device.

Next step is to add these lines to your file:

Option "DesktopSetup"  "horizontal,reverse"
Option "Mode2"         "1280x1024"
Option "DesktopSetup" "LVDS,AUTO"
Option "EnablePrivateBackZ" "yes"
Option "HSync2" "65"
Option "VRefresh2" "60"

As for what these options mean:

Option "DesktopSetup" -> This is how your monitors are physically configured, Horizontal means they are next to each other, and reverse means Monitor 2 is to the left of Monitor 1. Other options are vertical, and not having the reverse modifier there.
Option "Mode2" -> This is the resolution of your second monitor
Option "DesktopSetup" -> The types of monitors that is connected LVDS = LCD, CRT, AUTO.. leaving this as auto should work.
Option "EnablePrivateBackZ" -> This enables 3d support for both monitors.. this may not work but it seems to work for me.
Option "HSync2" -> Set the horizontal sync of your second monitor, 65 seems to be a default value for 99% of LCDs
Option "VRefresh2" -> Vertical refresh of your second monitor, 60 is mine, you will probably have to look yours up if it doesn't work.

In the end, this is what my device section looks like:

Section "Device"
      Identifier      "aticonfig-Device[0]"
      Driver          "fglrx"
      Option          "VideoOverlay"  "on"
      Option          "OpenGLOverlay" "off"
      Option "DesktopSetup"  "horizontal,reverse"
      Option "Mode2"         "1280x1024"
      Option "DesktopSetup" "LVDS,AUTO"
      Option "EnablePrivateBackZ" "yes"
      Option "HSync2" "65"
      Option "VRefresh2" "60"
EndSection

As I said, these options work for me. Due to the crappy state of the ATI drivers you may need to play with it. There are a few drawbacks that I've found in that my total resolution should be 2960x1050 however it seems to be 3100x1050, or something similar. I don't notice this since the extra pixels are "off" the monitor. And with the second monitor, there are 26 pixels that fall off the bottom of the monitor, but in practice I've never really had an issue with it.

Please drop a comment if you found this helpful (or if it didn't work for you, what you did to fix it, etc).

HOWTO: Prevent a BSoD from disappearing

2008-03-04T07:27:00.003-06:00

I'm going to go over the simple steps of setting a Windows XP install to not auto-reboot on a Blue Screen of Death. While this may be nice if you get it once in a while, if, like me, you break something that prevents Windows from booting because of a BSoD having it reboot instantly makes it impossible to see what is going on. Many of you may know this, but I hadn't yet figured out how to do it until last night when I managed to prevent Windows from booting.

Step 1:
Right click My Computer and go to System Properties (Or, if you like the keyboard, Win+Pause/Break). Click the 'Advanced' tab.

Step 2:
Click 'Settings' under 'Startup and Recovery'. Under the System Failure heading, uncheck 'Automatically Restart'.

Now, when you BSoD, you'll actually be able to -read- the error message and try to solve the problem. In my case it was a corrupt vidstub.sys file.

UPDATE:
If you are unable to even boot in to safemode to get this done, there is help!
First, you need to download a boot disk that has a registry editor. I recommend:
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
It's been a while since I've used it, but it has always worked for me.
Open up the registry editor (It's under NTFS tools) and edit this key (Odd formatting because of limit in width of the blog):
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\
SYSTEM\
ControlSet001\
Control\
CrashControl

Change AutoReboot key to 0

Hope that helps!

HOWTO: Linux/Rst-B Scanning

2008-03-01T14:06:00.000-06:00

As much as we all love to rave about how secure *nix installs are, it -is- still possible to get infected by the one or two variants of malware out there. Some admins (myself included at points) get lulled into a sense of security knowing that we've got billions of Windows machines acting as human shields to protect us, but we do need to take steps to make sure we don't become part of the botnet brigade.

There is one package out there (Linux/Rst-B) that seems to be the most common (relatively speaking) issue out there for *nix, and there is a handy tool for detecting it. It comes with a pre-compiled binary for Debian (which works in Ubuntu as well).

We're going to put it in /usr/local/sbin, so that it is on the path for later on:

sudo su -
cd /usr/local/sbin/
wget http://www.sophos.com/support/cleaners/detection_tool.tar.gz
tar xvfz detection_tool.tar.gz

I realize that you can just sudo the wget and extraction commands if you don't have write privs on sbin/, but hey, I'm lazy.

This will extract the detection_tool/ directory, which gives you the source and the pre-compiled binaries. To compile from source:

cd /usr/local/sbin/detection_tool
make

Copy the binary to the sbin/ directory with link:

ln -s /usr/local/sbin/detection_tool/pre-compiled/detection_tool /usr/local/sbin/rst_detection_tool

OR, if compiled from source:

ln -s /usr/local/sbin/detection_tool/detection_tool /usr/local/sbin/rst_detection_tool

To use:

rst_detection_tool [-v] (path)

So to scan the entire filesystem:

rst_detection_tool /

If all is well, you'll get this output:

root@ubuShock:/usr/local/sbin# rst_detection_tool /
Sophos Rst-B Detection Tool
---------------------------
Copyright (c) 2008 Sophos Plc. All rights reserved.

Scanned 681699 files, found 0 infections of Linux/Rst-B.
End of scan.
root@ubuShock:/usr/local/sbin#

Anyway, best of luck.

NOTE: This howto taken from Howtoforge - Which is a great place for howtos relating to linux. I've altered it a bit to make it a bit easier to read IMHO.

HOWTO: Mac OSX on a Windows Machine

2008-02-14T13:27:00.003-06:00

For this you will need a mac (or a hackintosh) running OSX. This is basically a way to connect multiple users simultaneously to the mac system, a la XDMCP for Linux. The performance isn't quite as good as XDMCP since it uses the VNC protocol, but it is very much usable over a LAN.

All these steps are to be done on the Mac..
Step 1: Create a secondary account. This will be the account you log in to.

Step 2: In the account section in the System Prefrences, open up the Account section, and browse to 'Login Options'. Open this up and enable 'Fast User Switching'

Step 3: Switch to the account you want to be able to connect to via fast user switching. This is accomplished by clicking the user name in the upper right corner and selecting the name you created in step 1.

Note (Thanks John): You need to disable the built-in Leopard screensharing via the Sharing option in System Preferences before installing and using Vine if you have it enabled (It is off by default)

Step 4: Download and install Vine (This is a standalone vnc server. Use this instead of the inbuilt VNC server.) from HERE - You will want to get the 3.0 package.

Step 5: Run the vine server, and set it to open at login by right clicking the icon on the dock, and enabling 'Open at Login'

Step 6: Switch back to your original account

Step 7: Download a vnc client for windows, and connect to the IP address of your mac. If everything went according to plan, you should have your mac desktop sitting on your windows desktop.

A few notes:
You should be able to adjust the screen resolution of the other user without a problem, although there are reports that it can do some odd things to the resolution of the primary user. Basically what happens is this - If you switch on the mac to the secondary user, the display resolution gets overwritten to the default, and you need to change it back with vnc.

Also, if you reboot, you will have to re-login to the secondary account in order to be able to connect.

And hey, if you found this helpful, please leave a comment and click my google ad.

Update: A commenter (John) has recommended that on the windows client, you set the encoder to zlibHex and the compression to 1 for best performance.

HOWTO: XDMCP with Windows XP

2008-02-10T21:02:00.002-06:00

For those of you that aren't in the know, XDMCP (X Desktop Management Control Protocol, if I recall correctly) allows you to log in to a linux machine, as if you were sitting -at- the computer itself. Basically it works like this, I click a shortcut on my desktop, and my secondary (17" monitor) comes alive as the login screen for my linux machine. Yay right?

(Note the KDE on the left, and the XP on the right?)

It's fairly easy to set up. If you are using Gnome (and I'd recommend it for setting this up, as KDE seems to be harder (IE: You need to edit text files, and there are a billion HOWTOS out there for it)), you go to System->Administration-Login Window. Click the remote tab, and choose Style: Plain. THIS IS IMPORTANT. THERE IS A BUG WITH THE CURRENT GNOME VERSION THAT WILL REFUSE CONNECTIONS IF THIS IS NOT PLAIN.

Most of the other options can be left at default. From your windows machine:

Download xming. Yes, you can use cygwin, but it's harder to set up and is only really needed if you want a hell of a lot more linux stuff then you need for this app. Xming is basically a little xserver with a nifty app to let you connect via xdmcp.

Once you get xming set up, open up the xlaunch dialog. Now, for xdmcp you will want to choose One window, or one window without border. If you want the linux window to take up your entire monitor (this is the closest to physically being at the linux machine), you'd choose fullscreen.

Click next, click XDMCP, type your hostname, click next. Under addition options for xming, you can set things like the size of the window, or what monitor it appears on:
-screen 0 @2 -> This will put it on your second monitor, taking up the whole screen
-screen 0 1024 768 -> this will make a window that is 1024x768 (ignored if fullscreen is picked earlier)

After you finish that, you have the option to save it, and the button for finish. Clicking finish will start the connection, hopefully giving you this:
Log in as normal, and viola! Then, you can get really geeky and do something like this!

Yes, I'm running XP, which is connected to Ubuntu 7.10, which is running a Virtual Machine of XP.

And hey, if you found this helpful - by all means leave a comment.

iPod Touch redux

2008-01-07T18:28:00.000-06:00

I find, that after using the touch for almost a month now, that it really works as well as the hype suggested. In truth, I am surprised at how well it works. Of course, I've now jailbroken it and have access to a large range of really kick ass apps. The most indespensible of these is the mail app from the iPhone. It works really well and hands IMAP painlessly. Also, I am a big fan of ApolloIM, a decently rounded im program. Lots games and other cool utilities. If you have a touch I would not hesitate to jailbreak it.

This was posted from the ipod touch.

iPod Touch

2007-12-25T11:12:00.000-06:00

So, christmas has come and gone. And I am the proud owner of a new iPod touch. When I get back from vacation, so will begin the quest to unlock and put more apps on it. I will keep you updated.

Also, the post was made from the touch.

Defeat.

2007-12-11T15:31:00.001-06:00

Cleverly, it would seem that both the big box electronics retailers here have locked down their display iPod Touches, thus rendering my plan useless. Rue! Something I didn't know though, if you get the pin wrong, it locks the ipod for 15 minutes. Rather frustrating if you ask me.

Why fridges shouldn't run on Linux.

2007-12-07T19:01:00.001-06:00

Credit goes to my friend, not me.. (I'm a linux fanboy):

[root@fridge.host:/]# cd fridgekernel
[root@fridge.host:/fridgekernel]#
[root@fridge.host:/fridgekernel]# make install
Error: Unresolved dependency: Milk-1.5.4 requires fridge_tempcontrol >= 1.4.2
Error: Conflict with module. Ketchup-1.3.5 is not compatible with Milk-1.5.4
Error: make fail

Tasers.

2007-12-07T14:15:00.001-06:00

In light of all the recent hoopla about tasers and the deaths associated with them, I thought I'd make my opinion known. CBC Ran an article saying that the Quebec MPs are trying to get together to ban the taser device. There are few flaws with the mindset of the people outcrying for "something to be done!". The most obvious is that it's easy to look, see a corpse, and assume wrong-doing. Police officers are quite probably the most widely criticized arm of the goverment. While I don't doubt that on some level there have been abuses of the taser, I do have a problem with people trying to say that other things should be used. Lets give a small breakdown:

- Chemical: Things like pepper spray and mace. These are sprayed and have an effect range of about 2 meters. 6 feet. They work by inflicting large amount of pain on the subject. The major downfall of this is that adrenaline works specifically to counter the effects of pain and keep the body going.. be it running or fighting. Also, drug use (meth especially) can make these sprays absolutely useless. If anything, it can make the suspect even more upset and more willing to harm an officer.

- Physical: Nightsticks/Batons are the main weapon here. A nightstick is basically a hard piece of wood or metal attached to a handle that you use to beat someone with. Think thin baseball bat. Suspect is coming at you with a knife, you bust out the baton and hit them in legs. (I'm told by people that there are varying levels of force that are used, start with the legs, then the torso, and if they are still fighting, the head.). The problem is, a miscalculated hit can cause serious internal injury such as internal bleeding. Things of that nature are very hard to diagnose at the scene, and a suspect may bleed out. Or, if you hit them in the head, it is very likely they will incur brain damage. They may not -die-, but be crippled for life.

- Gun: Self explanatory. Aim for the chest, and squeeze the trigger. Everyone agrees that guns should be a last ditch, "My life, or theirs" sort of mentality.

----

Now, looking that that.. we see that chemical can work, but it's very close range. So a person who is intent on fighting you is already almost with striking distance when you can deploy it. There is also the problem of ventilation. It is almost impossible to use indoors, because it will fill the area and innocent bystanders will be caught with the burning chemicals. Also, the person can resist the effects due to drugs or adrenaline.

Physical: Can work, and one big case I've heard people saying is that they leave marks so it is obvious when there is abuse of force. The issues come in when the person is heavily on drugs so sense of pain is deadened, or if the person is much strong/bigger/better fighter then the officer. Also, you have to get close for this. And, to be perfectly honest, nothing screams "police brutality" like some bystander catching 5 seconds of a guy being beat with a nightstick, despite the fact that the guy may have been a meth head that came at the cop with a bat. There is also the very real danger of spreading diseases via contact with blood or other bodily fluids that can happen in a struggle.

Taser: Range of 10 meters, or up close with just the old school "stun gun" style that they can also do. Doesn't work by causing pain to try to convince someone to stop fighting, it works removing the ability for the person to control their muscles. It -stops- them from fighting. Downsides are that it may cause death if over used (like a nightstick, or a gun). But it keeps the officer out of harms way, while taking down a violent suspect.

Now, I'm not saying there wouldn't be ways to improve the taser. If my information is correct, taser makes add-ons that provide video and audio of what ever the taser is pointed at. I think that can be taken a step forward to also log the number of shots, as well as the amount of time the trigger is held, and thus is sending electricity through the probes. It will bring accountability to the officers using the taser, as well as ease public minds about what exactly is going on. Think of the video cameras in cop cars. It gets rid of most of the "he said, she said, he did" arguments that you can't win and provides PROOF of what happened. Was the suspect violent? Did they actually reach for something when they got tasered? Until this style of accountability is there, we won't know and the public will keep screaming every time something like this happens.

Run VM? Reduce your bloat.

2007-12-06T22:08:00.001-06:00

I run Windows XP Pro in a Virtual Machine (VMWorkstation, love it) on top of a Ubuntu host OS. Up until now, I had just used the VMWorkstation window to do the things I needed to do in Windows. A few weeks ago, I had started tinkering with XDMCP as a way to be able to use my laptop as my desktop computer so I could sit at the couch and work and what not, and I thought, "This is quite a fast interface, wonder if Windows has anything like it."...

Low and behold, RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol, I believe). I set it up on my Windows box, closed VM (They've got an option when you close to let it run in the background.), booted up the terminal services client (sudo apt-get install tsclient), connected to the machine and viola.. Windows. The interface seemed to have no real delay, just like if I was using the VM window. However, a quick glance over to conky (my desktop system monitor) showed me that the machine memory footprint went from ~45% to ~12%. MASSIVE decrease. Both the guest and the host OS are so much more responsive.

Me.

2007-12-06T20:06:00.001-06:00

Let's see. If the title of the blog hadn't given it away, I'm a geek. I love computers. I tinker with them, I tweak them, I bend them to my will! (Well, I try. Often times it has me staring at a cryptic error message going "Damn.. did I forget a ';'?"). I have a decent set up at home, which incidentally is my office. Dual monitors, an LG 20.1", and a 17" Benq that I swindled some old lady for. I run primarily Ubuntu (7.10 at the moment), but I dual boot Vista well because I like to play games on the odd occasion.

I have an unhealthy obsession with find new ways to use my apache server. Web-based torrent client? Oh yes please! Wiki? Be still my beating heart. Webmin? I'll take two! The thing I like about linux is, I can do really what ever I want with it. I can run enterprise level stuff, for free (and legal), to check my email. But, one of the greatest joys of going from Windows to Linux is 'kill -9 (pid)'. For those of you that aren't in the know, kill -9 is like CTRL+ALT+DEL and killing a process.. except instead of asking nicely if it would please quit, it has a shotgun, a tank, and air support. When you kill -9 something, it dies. Instantly. Not that you have to do that very often (Unless you are like me, and find a way to make even the most stable of programs unstable).

I'll try to occasionally post HOWTOs and what not that I dig up that are interesting. On the off chance google links to it and it saves someone an hour or two of work. Anywhoo.

Technorati Tags: Me

Hax.

2007-12-06T19:42:00.000-06:00

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

So, I went perusing and checked out the iPod Touch. Looks like a fun piece of kit. Decided to do a bit of digging on jailbreaking it. Looks easy enough (jailbreakme.com, visit it with the iTouch, and you win.). What I've decided to do is to jailbreak the demo ipod (Mwuahahaha), install OpenSSH, and have my own little ssh server! Perhaps I can find a way to run the OSX version of VNC Server on it, and have my own little window in to the latest and greatest UI created.

So, I'm apparently a nutjob. The person that told me to start this blog said, and I quote: "please tell me you have a blog where you write all this". So here it is!

Ok, because I am a completely out of my mind for nerdy things, I'm going to be PGP signing all my posts. (Or, at least the ones I make from my home/work machine).

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)

iQEVAwUBR1imgf/UqpMGaPqAAQI6ygf/bbaVem+Y0iSWfEG7QlK90Ph6Qrzxvxds
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DxZ35ZBynPuQyc2FCpFzE8SUIa0JyE6zky8dIMkPWsxFt7ovgHI1hHxiaH4WnfJc
zyChXudJCDwgOfGTD1OJVT121USMJOUMYplL0dnpvgfVPFkUWsi8kdQem2VSiD8a
kFgAGDPslE8LvAxkCz4af+90szlJ496CTkAE7WiPNdFNYNy1PIe0+ZCYtpkDM4Rp
xti5QBOLPzpxiozYj6MO3C6Dou/seCnm3ulEy5xRXuWDAHnRevztng==
=QJ88
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

First post?!?

2007-12-06T19:34:00.000-06:00

I WIN! Anyway, more to come shortly after I find a way to hack blogspot functionality in to my email client.