Cat, bag, out
So, I guess the cat is out of the bag then... Stewart and I are working on the finishing stages of a book on MythTV. Amazon now has it listed for pre-order. [btags:]
In Sydney!
So now I am in Sydney, with Grant and Lindsay (old friends from Canberra). Newtown seems nice, in fact the house itself is very nice. However, the streets are pretty Victorian and built up, which is a bit oppressive. Then again, I am told there are a bunch of parks I haven't seen yet, so I'll delay any further comment until then. It appears it's only about 15 minutes on the train from here to work, which will be nice during the week. More news later...
Beware the concierge at the Rendezvous Hotel!
Heh, he cancelled my hire car booking without my knowledge or permission. Then when it was fixed, the car company tried to bill me $100 for cancelling. It took a while to sort out...
MythArchive, best failure mode ever!
So, you're creating a native archive with MythArchive. You've never run it before, so you just give it a go. It can't write data files to the place the videos are at, so what is it's failure mode? Well, how about trying to change permissions on every file on the machine? Lovely. 2006-10-13 22:32:23.025 Options - createiso: 0, doburn: 1, mediatype: 3, erasedvdrw: 0 2006-10-13 22:32:23.026 savedirectory: / 2006-10-13 22:32:23.026 Saving files to : / 2006-10-13 22:32:23.077 Archiving Christmas (/share/Movies/dvd/Christmas.avi), do delete: 1 2006-10-13 22:32:23.108 Creating xml file for Christmas 2006-10-13 22:32:23.170 Created videometadata element for Christmas 2006-10-13 22:32:23.204 MythNativeWizard: Failed to open file for writing - /Christmas/Christmas.avi.xml 2006-10-13 22:32:23.204 Archiving Easter (/share/Movies/dvd/Easter.avi), do delete: 1 2006-10-13 22:32:23.204 Creating xml file for Easter 2006-10-13 22:32:23.205 Created videometadata element for Easter 2006-10-13 22:32:23.206 MythNativeWizard: Failed to open file for writing - /Easter/Easter.avi.xml 2006-10-13 22:32:23.206 Archiving Thanksgiving (/share/Movies/dvd/Thanksgiving.avi), do delete: 1 2006-10-13 22:32:23.207 Creating xml file for Thanksgiving 2006-10-13 22:32:23.207 Created videometadata element for Thanksgiving 2006-10-13 22:32:23.208 MythNativeWizard: Failed to open file for writing - /Thanksgiving/Thanksgiving.avi.xml chmod: changing permissions of `/': Operation not permitted chmod: changing permissions of `/lost+found': Operation not permitted chmod: changing permissions of `/var': Operation not permitted chmod: changing…
AUUG 2006 NSLU2 hacking talk
I just gave my Linksys NSLU2 hacking talk at AUUG 2006 in Melbourne, Australia. You can find the slides online (powerpoint and PDF) as well as the paper (PDF).
Slides from the NSLU2 talk at LUV
Here is the slide deck I used for the NSLU2 hacking talk when I gave it at LUV the other night: australia_melbourne_luv_nslu2.ppt.
Melbourne
This one took a couple of days to write up cause I am slack... I flew down to Melbourne for the night the other day to present a beta of the NSLU2 hacking talk at the Linux Users of Victoria LUG meeting. It's good that I did, because although the talk was ok, I don't think it was up to standard for a conference, and it gives me some time to work out what was wrong and then fix it up in time for the real deal. The main problem is that some of the demos took too long to work because I hadn't factored in reboot time for the devices. Dinner afterwards was really nice too, and I am actually quite impressed with the high level of clue at the LUG. There also seem to be some pretty cool MythTV hacking projects happening in Melbourne at the moment too. Oh, and thanks to Stewart for picking me up from the airport, thus saving me a $50 cab fare.
In Canberra
Lefty tighty, righty loosey When Frank used to drive in the US when we were on business trips, he'd mutter "Righty tighty, lefty loosey" as he turned corners to make sure he ended up on the correct side of the road. Now that I am back in Australia, I guess I need to mutter the opposite when I drive around. I was a little nervous when I drove for the first time since returning today, but it was actually really easy. It's good to know that I haven't broken my brain permanently. Or at least not on that front. Today was lunch with my mother and brother, a wander around the National Botanic gardens, and then a quick trip into the city. It's interesting that all of Civic seems to be taken over by the Canberra Center (a shopping mall), which now consumes something like three more city blocks than it used to. Met Steve Walsh for beer, and then off to my mother-in-law's for dinner. Now I am at dad's house, finishing up my talk for LUV tomorrow night. Wish me luck. [btags:]