August 2005 Archive
For atleast a year, Microsoft has been announcing that we need software patents because they are needed to protect innovation(no doubt they mean their own innovation). However, I'm really having a hard time figuring out just what they've ever innovated? Apple... they have many to their name, and Windows Media Center is not an innovation... Its a best effort copy of Tivo. And MythTV has been extending that original innovation into more... which could be argued as innovation in its own right... What exactly has Microsoft innovated? Their new graphics rendering engine(Avalon) for Vista? Nope... at best it extends whats already in Mac OS X(cocoa?). A database that is the filesystem(when its eventually released), nope been done already, say IBM AS/400. As I said... having a hard time thinking of one thing Microsoft has ever innovated on (technology wise only). So if any of you know please let me know by all means.
August 26, 2005 Posted by mitch |
thoughts |
Today during the Margarett Ruth segment of Radio from Hell on X96 there was a quote I liked and I just thought I'd share.
Inner definitions of happiness are more important than outer definitions of success.
Also, you can always find out what happened during the show on the
Radio From Hell Blog, or the download of the mp3 from
RFH OnDemand.
Well... I completed a rough set of specs for a MythTV box. Processor/Mobo combo probably will change, and possibly the hard drive sizes. Currently I've listed one 40GB drive for the OS and a set of drives from 160GB to 350GB for the media drive (currently will only run one). Setup in a logical volume so future expansion is possible. This box would remain a MythTV box, and probably migrated into just a backend eventually. (this makes a difference for the type of hardware used). The rough estimate is ~$750 for the box. There are some areas I didn't skimp on the price of the parts. The power supply being one of them.
MythTV Box:
-Case
Name: Lian Li PC-60BPlus Black Computer Case
Price: $129.00
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811112078
-Power Supply
Name: SeaSonic S12-430 430W Power Supply
Price: $99.00
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817151023
-Hard Drive
--OS (may not be needed... probably will have spare for OS)
Name: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 ST340014A 40GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 - OEM
Price: $53.50
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148013
--Media
Name: Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3300831AS 300GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 - OEM
Price: $165.25
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148064
---OR
--Media
Name: Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3250823AS 250GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache Serial ATA150 - OEM
Price: $112.00
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148065
---OR
--Media
Name: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 SATA NCQ ST3160827AS 160GB 7200 RPM 8M Cache Serial ATA150 - OEM
Price: $89.25
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148034
-DVD Drive
--Using one just pulled out of Desktop
-Memory
Name: pqi POWER Series 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 (PC 4200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory - Retail
Price: $74.99
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820141225
-Motherboard
Name: GIGABYTE GA-7VT600P-RZ ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Price: $47.00
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813128281
-Processor
Name: AMD Athlon XP 3000+ 400MHz FSB Socket A Processor - OEM
Price: $105.00
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103394
-Heatsink_Fan
Name: ZALMAN CNPS7700-CU 120mm 2 Ball Cooling Fan - Retail
Price: $47.99
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118115
-Video Card
Name: MSI FX5200-TD128LF Geforce FX5200 128MB DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Retail
Price: $38.00
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814127181
-Video Capture Card
Name: Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 500 MCE White box WinTV-PVR-500MCE Windows XP Media Center Edition - Retail
Price: $138.00
Url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815116628
August 22, 2005 Posted by mitch |
technology |
I've descided to do a new section on my blog here... I'm going to start uploading screenshots of my desktop every so often as a means of tracking general changes to it. As such, I've added one that I grabed the other day. Since I'm having to start from scratch again with all my themes I wen't and downloaded a bunch of stuff that day and was trying them out to see which would match my mood the best at the time. The dark brown colors mixed in with the blue's of the GTK theme really work for me currently... *shrug* anyway just thought it might be fun.
August 20, 2005 Posted by mitch |
mythtv |
No, I don't mean MythTV has a bug, (not saying it hasn't ever, or won't ever have a bug, as they're just part of software developtment) This is more, me having the MythTV bug again. I want to build a MythTV box! I just have to convince Elissa it its a good idea :). Within the next couple of days I'm going to post my System Configs as a way of forcing me to make the purchase... One part at a time should be doable. Or if all else fails... my christmas bonus should finish it off :) (I really don't want to wait that long... as it would be useful for recording shows that we watch but the times they're on arn't always convenient. Especially now with school and work scheduals what they are)
Time will tell.. I'll keep you all posted.
August 18, 2005 Posted by mitch |
internet |
I've said it before, and I'll say it again NewEgg is the best place to buy computer parts! My DVD burner is on the truck to be delivered today... that makes a 2 day turn around!! I don't think I'll ever buy from anyone else... their shipping is extremely fast. I love it. I haven't needed to use their customer support or returns departments yet... but I've heard and read that they're equally as good. Buy from NewEgg!
August 17, 2005 Posted by mitch |
life |
I'm not entirely sure what it is lately... but I've been walking around like a zombie. Last week and probably the week before was because of a big infastructure change I was making at work(which didn't go as well as I would have hoped...). This week, I'm not sure whats been going on... I've got alot on my mind and I'm not sure if thats whats keeping me up at night. So to unwind at night I've been watching movies (on my newly completed 5.1 surround sound at home, it makes it more enjoyable... for me atleast. Elissa doesn't seem to care much, but shes glad I'm happy about it). Anyway I'm hoping to get some within the next day or two... depending on how badly 'kira needs to be walked.
Recovery of data off my old hard drive (120GB SATA) didn't go as well as I would have hoped. I was able to recover a whole 1.4MB of the 107GB partion... yeah... good eh?
After trying for a couple days doing a "xfs_repair" and not finding out untill after I wasted two days trying, that xfs_repair dies as soon as it gets an IO error. The drive would kick one of those out every couple seconds when you were trying to access it. So, I waited two days for nothing... So, I had done a bit more reading and found that I should copy off the partion and then I will be able to perform a xfs_repair on the file that was coppied off. I used both dd if=/dev/sdb6 conv=noerrr of=PARTITION, and ddrescue /dev/sdb6 PARTITION and both resulted in the same 1.4MB file after all was said and done. So, it hasn't been a very good week. I lost everything... yet again.
On the bright side of things, I have a DVD burner on the way, and it will be here by friday :)
This question has been popping up lately... my thoughts: Its those dumb proprietary companies that feel the need to own. The answer: YES! without a doubt we still need the GPL. Why? because not everyone in this world stands for what the GPL does. The GPL is freedom, freedom from being controled by some corporation or government or person. The Internet is freedom, and it was built on free software. People by nature demand such things, however, people also get very greedy and will pervert ideas to where they make sence for why you need to give up your freedom. Clue to the proprietary companies that want to write software for Linux, Go ahead, but you need to follow the rules... if *you* don't write *every bit* of the code yourself, *you must* follow the rules laid out by the the license of the software you use. These rules are no different than what you end up doing in traditional software, Linux however has all the cool stuff thats free. Its easy to see why they want to use it, but for some reason don't think they should have to follow the rules (which can include giving away all your source code as well). If you don't like it, stay out of the kitchen. Those are the rules. Take it or leave it.
Heres a really good writeup on the subject: Qt, the GPL, Business and Freedom
Give it a read. Its worth it.
I've been able to rebuild my hard drive after a week of not having it... its really horrible not having a computer at home... Thankfully I work on them all day, and I do have a laptop that allows me to get through the rest of the day :)
Now on to more important things
My hard drive is schedualed to arrive tuesday, however I've noticed on FedEx's web site it was in Salt Lake yesterday morning... so I'm hopping it will be put on a truck to Orem tomorrow morning early, so it will make it on a truck out for delivery tomorrow. I've been using my laptop at home, and I must say.. I really don't like typing on a laptop when I have a keyboard right here... If I were to ever get a laptop, I'd need a docking station/port replicator for when I was at home. I'd just like to say NewEgg Rocks! I'm getting a SATA 160GB Seagate drive to replace my Western Digital 120 SATA drive, and I'm still hoping I can pull off my /home partion off the drive. Stability got alot better with an XFS file system on it over the ext3, so I'm going to use that again for this next drive. It should be good :) I'm also going to have extra space now that this drive is 40GB larger... so I think i'm going to leave 10GB or so for testing other distro's. I might even bring back Gentoo. Or really give Ubuntu a try. We will see.
It finally kicked the bucket... I've had a Western Digital SATA 120GB drive since I built my current home computer... and I've have a few problems with it. As you would see from a couple months ago, I lost everything on my home partion once, and I've had corruption problems on my root partion a couple times before that... This time it just died completly. While I was using my computer last night, the OS froze. Everything, it was hard locked. I powered it off and let it sit for a bit... and then booted it up to a restore disk and ran an fsck on all of the partions, all of which came back ok after a journal recovery. Rebooted... still having problems finding files on the drive. I thought this was just like any of the other times where a format and reinstall would fix it. I was wrong.... After I reinstalled Fedora Core 4, I brought it back up and started doing updates (without logging into the gui), and let it go over night. I woke up to find the console spewing out ATA Seek errors. From experience this tells me the drive is done. Its not completly dead but the drive heads are messed. So I'm going to take it back to my parents where I can hook it up to my brothers box(since he has SATA and enough drive space to spare) and copy over as much of my home partion as possible.
I'll let you all know how it goes.
