Finally – Im moving
by Dr D on Apr.23, 2008, under Life
So I decided its time for me to move out. I’ve lived at home (with my dad and older sister) for a while, and a few little things kept bugging me. So I decided to move on, and get my own place. Its still in town, near where other family lives, but its my own place, where I can be alone and not bothered.
So I get to pay the rest of my deposit tomorrow after work, then I get to pick up my keys Friday, May 23rd and start moving in on the 24th and 25th.
This is a big step for me. I am happy, and nervous at the same time.
emerge -C python
by Dr D on Apr.13, 2008, under Computers, Funny
Okay, so I had a conflict with phyton and python-updater on my gentoo box the other day, and being tired and not thinking, i did a emerge -C pyton, which removes the program.
Shortly afterwards remembering the emerge program (gentoo’s portage application) is dependant on python. Doing a series of “whoops”, “oh shits”, and “damns”, I did a quick google, and found this link, and used it with updated versions/commands. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=5746
Basically what I did:
cd /tmp/
tar xjf /usr/portage/distfiles/Python-2.4.4.tar.bz2
cd Python-2.4.4/
./configure –with-fpectl –infodir=/usr/share/info/ –mandir=/usr/share/man
make
make install prefix=/usr
emerge python
cd ; rm -rf /tmp/Python-2.4.4
Which got me back up and operational. Kudos to the original poster to fix this!
Virtual Machines, trixbox and joy
by Dr D on Mar.02, 2008, under Code, Computers, General
So I decided to get a VM server for at home, reduce the number of machines I have in house, reduce power, and learn while Im at it.
So I got my system, its a Intel Duo 2 Quad Q6600 cpu, 4g ram, 750g hdd and I install gentoo on it.
Everything is going fine, until I get to converting my trixbox. Of course, I shouldnt be doing this because trixbox is realtime audio for a phone, on a virtual server. Ive read the bads about it, but I dont care. In my case, its a glorified answering machine.
So I google, and stumble accross some sites, we have http://pbxinaflash.com/forum/showthread.php?t=66 who had two unique solutions which helped, but didnt fix my issue. I tried both solutions, then in the process of doing so, I realized something. If there is a CPU load of say 5-10% going across, the audio sounds perfect!
So of course, I get to finding a way to geneate a low cpu load, that can be “moved over” when something more important comes along.
Now my script, dubbed “generate-cpu-load.sh” was born.
Here is my script, and where its placed to run
——– >8 start code 8<——–
#!/bin/sh
#
# (c) Dan Delaney 2008 http://dan-delaney.com
# generate-cpu-load.sh - To generate a small CPU load on the system so
# that trixbox will play back audio without skipping.
# NOTE: This is NOT to be used for a perminant solution, just to work
# around a problem with vmware and asterisk timing.
while true; do
nice -n19 find /etc/asterisk > /dev/null 2>&1
done
——– >8 end code 8<——–
Of course, we need this to run constantly in the background, so I put it in my rc.local file
echo "nice -n19 /root/generate-cpu-load.sh &" >> /etc/rc.d/rc.local
and to start it without rebooting: sh -c "nice -n19 /root/generate-cpu-load.sh &"
Now, dont go knocking me down because this creates a constant CPU load. This does not make the system ready for production, nor may it work on anyone else’s system.
If you find this helpful or just whatever, just drop me a line and say so!
Mob Relations?
by Dr D on Dec.25, 2007, under Life
So tonight at our family holiday party, my grandpa was talking about some family history and it came up that there is a mausoleum for a few of his uncles. Which I thought was cool in itself, but it gets better.
So apparently, this mausoleum belongs to the Mangano family, and one of its residents, is Lawrence “Dago” Mangano, one of Al Capones right hand men.
Some outside links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Mangano and http://www.crimemagazine.com/mangano.htm
And heres my grandpa!
29 dimentions of compatibility my ass
by Dr D on Nov.28, 2007, under Life
Just another thing to add to my rants and depression.
I bet they are going to start sending me random people who are “matches” to try to get me to pay.
Stopping Spammers, while mobile
by Dr D on Nov.01, 2007, under Computers, Work
So I was in our new DesPlains facility, when I got a page. “green mail queue above 600 (1000)”. Stupid spammers.
So I turned on bluetooth, connected to the internet with my cell, and took care of business. Stopped the spammers, dead in their tracks while being completely wireless and mobile.
/me kicks the spammers ass.
Companion Box and cake!
by Dr D on Oct.13, 2007, under Funny, Games
I got my cake! OH LOOK! Companion box!
You should have taken a left turn back there….Its kind of funny. Someday we will look back on this and laugh laugh laugh….
Didn’t we have fun, though? Remember that part where you were about to go into the fire pit and I said “Goodbye” and you were like “No way!” and then I was all “we pretended we were going to murder you”. Wasn’t that fun? … hello, are you still there?
LOL…Toilet Paper
by Dr D on Oct.07, 2007, under Funny
This is a funny email thread from my work from back in August 2005. Last names Removed, Company Name removed.
—–Original Message—–
From: Cindy
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 3:12 PM
Subject: toilet paper
Anyone know where some can be found?
Who is responsible for keeping us stocked?
From: Christian
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 4:11 PM
Subject: RE: toilet paper
Create a ticket, assign to me. I will then create a project
in Microsoft PM. Once that is done, you will need to notify
Steve who will then assign an engineer. The engineer will
then state “it’s not my job”. That task will then be assigned
back to you. You will then assign to operations (brian E) who
will then assign one of his resources (mark from the
warehouse). Mark will request a PO from billing who will then
tell him that his manager can only request PO’s. At that
time, brian E will request a PO from billing. Billing will
sit on it for 3 days and then send the PO back to brian.
Brian will forward it to mark who will then go out and
purchase it from sams club. I know I’m missing a few steps
but I’m sure we’ll make it work.
Works like a well oiled machine every time.
From: Andy
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 4:54 PM
Subject: RE: toilet paper
You still need to add that dispatch to the calendar so I can
approve it!
From: Scott
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 4:55 PM
Subject: RE: toilet paper
Its on dispatch manager tomorrow at 10am
From: Andy
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 4:56 PM
Subject: RE: toilet paper
I didn’t authorize that!!!
From: Chad
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 4:58 PM
Subject: RE: toilet paper
Hey we needs to be upgraded,….need double rolls two ply
From: Andy
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 5:00 PM
Subject: RE: toilet paper
I think the introduction of a new product should have been
proposed by engineering.
Red Fedora?
by Dr D on Sep.19, 2007, under General, Life
Yea, since passing my RHCE test, I figured I would treat myself. But not to just anything. I got a Red Fedora!
I ordered some stuff from the redhat store, got a few shirts, a few posters, and of course, the red fedora. Pictures included for fun
I plan on getting a picture of myself wearing the fedora. Ive had mixed reactions from it. But I think its something fun and unique.
MythTV, TV recording, and 3GP streaming
by Dr D on Sep.03, 2007, under Code, Computers
Well, I haven’t written much about it, but I do have a MythTV setup on a Gentoo box at home.
The reason its running on Gentoo is simply because KnoppMyth didn’t give me the upgrade options I wanted without a re-install, or upgrade which breaks the system, and the fedora based installs didn’t work correctly on my hardware. Needless to say, I am very pleased with MythTV, on my Gentoo box.
Recently, Ive been looking into seeing if I can set up streams from my PVR, to my PDA phone. I found this file type, .3gp, which most modern systems recognize and play without problems. I came across a few websites [Links here, here, and here] that showed you how to encode videos into the 3gp format. However, on my system, the encoding process was not working correctly. After making sure I had all the correct USE options for my gentoo setup, I decided to try the first links directions, and compile a separate install for ffmpeg, dubbed ffmpeg_3gp.
Like all directions, things change, and I had to adopt the new options and such to get things to work, which is why im writing this. I figured I spent some time on getting it to work, and wanted to share my knowledge with the rest of the world (or whoever reads this)
Starting off, I made sure my system was up to date (Gentoo, 2007.0), I ran emerge –sync, of course.
Next, I had to download the ffmpeg source, the command used in the first link did not work, so I went to the website, and found the correct command:
svn checkout svn://svn.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg/trunk ffmpeg
Then, I cd’ed into the directory, and ran the config script, again, new versions, there was a different option to run:
./configure –enable-libamr-nb
The original documentation stated that there would need to be additional files downloaded, but I saw no note of this, so I decided to download the files anyways.
wget “http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/26_series/26.104/26104-510.zip”
I downloaded this one, because when trying to use the build in ebuild, gentoo downloaded this file as well. I followed the directions from here on out, copying the new executable from the current directory, to /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg_3gp
Then of course, the script to encode everything, I had to jazz up a bit:
mythtv@hermes ~ $ cat /usr/local/bin/myth3gp.sh
#!/bin/bash
PATH=”/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin”
NICELEVEL=”19″
OUT=”/mythtv/3gpvideo”
TMP=”/mythtv/3gpvideo/tmp”
OUTFILE=`echo $2 | sed -e ‘s/ /_/g’ -e ‘s/:/-/g’ -e ‘s/\!//g’`
TITLE=”`echo $2 | sed -e ‘s/^.*[0-9]-//g’`”
TIMESTAMP=”`date`”
COMMENT=”This video was encoded with ffmpeg on `hostname -f` at `date`”
RESOLUTION=”176×144″
# 176×144 default
# 352×288
sudo nice -n $NICELEVEL ffmpeg_3gp -y -i “$1″ -title “$TITLE” -timestamp “$TIMESTAMP” -comment “$COMMENT” -s $RESOLUTION -b 64k -r 15 -ac 1 -ar 8000 -ab 12.2k “$TMP/$OUTFILE.3gp” || exit 2
# do 3gp stuff
MP4Box -3gp -mtu 1450 -hint “$TMP/$OUTFILE.3gp” -out “$OUT/$OUTFILE.3gp” || exit 2
rm -rf $TMP/$OUTFILE.*
Install the script into the user Jobs, and the hard part should be done.
Next is the setup of the streaming server. I attempted to use the Darwin Streaming server, but ran into problems. Thats where I am now, and plan to continue on.
I hope this page helps people out if they ever run into problems with this type of setup.
EDIT:
So I just checked, and it looks like its been fixed in gentoo on a newer ebuild version, but it looks like its masked for some reason. The reason it wasn’t working is because they were using the old –enable line, instead of the new one. BLEH
oh well.
