Rich`s Other Blog

With the UK`s digital switchover looming like the Hindenburg it`s likely to turn into (when has anything ever gone right in the UK?), just why are Freeview receivers so flakey?

For the PC I have a little Hauppage WinTV USB box – not a bad little device, but a flakey blob of Freeview data and the device can freeze, occasionally with the software just bombing out, requiring a reset of the PC as the USB controller just gives up and cries.  I haven`t used it much since I moved house from about 10 miles away.  The girlfriend has had to return a couple of Bush boxes as they`ve frozen to the point of being useless.  She lives about 12 miles away.  And now my Humax has started acting up.

From oldest to newest, these receivers have around 4 years between them, so it`s hard to believe they could all contain the same chipsets or whatever else is required to decode the signal.  So the question is – why are these things so flakey?  Both of us, independently, have gone out or gone to bed, and come back to find a frozen box on several occasions.  These are different models manufactured at different times, located in different properties, with different environmental conditions.

Anyway – some useful information I picked up this morning for a “dead” Humax Freeview box.  You must power down, remove the aerial, and power up again if you want to get “in” and reset bits and pieces.  Seems an odd approach, but it worked for me.  The PVR was resetting constantly (you could hear the hard disk being reinitialised) and no buttons on the remote control or device itself helped.  This worked for a Humax 9150T  but is apparently a common “fix”.

Around September 2008 I purchased a Lacie NetworkSpace 1TB hard disk, a nice little number with built in Ethernet so it could be tucked away where the sun don`t shine and keep all my files nice and safe whilst I flung the laptop into my bag for the day-to-day.  Since then, I`ve been filling the drive up will all manner of crap.  Having become more interested in photography, there`s now several GB of photos, RAW files, etc. and lots of my CDs on there.

A "successful" backup...

The drive itself was “designed by Neil Poulton”, and if it`s anything to go by, Neil Poulton is something of a manic depressive, unimaginative lazybones.  The casing is shiny black, rectangular, and features a very bright, blue LED – flavour of the month.  So, it`s essentially a black, shiny brick.  The little ventilation holes look OK – little squares – and the device can run pretty hot.  Round the back we have the power, a switch (handy – and the drive waits until it shuts down before fully powering off), and the ethernet port.  At the front is the LED, and a USB connector.  And here lies the problem…

Being a middle-aged worrying sort, I didn`t want to risk losing all that stuff – absolute shite to most people, but a lot of stuff I`ve made, taken photos of, etc. and bought a 1TB USB external drive to use as a backup for the Lacie.  Through the Lacie`s web interface, I saw it was possible to set up one drive as the source (Lacie) and one as the destination (new Toshiba drive) and thought “easy peasy – link them over USB, click the buttons, and off it goes”.  And off nothing went.

After around 2 hours, the only backups I have apparently made have been 8 empty directories on the Toshiba, from a total of several thousand files.  Not a great ratio.  I thought I must have cocked something up in the plethora of 4 or 5 options, so tried again, with the same result.  Then I took a look at the logs from the Lacie.

The Lacie uses some form of embedded Linux – a few blogs mention it may be Yellow Dog – and does its biz using BusyBox, so I figured there would be some useful, sensible, really nice logging.  Here`s what I saw:

Apr 26 00:37:40  httpd:                     pam_unix(httpd:session): session closed for user admin
Apr 26 00:37:59  httpd:                     pam_unix(httpd:session): session opened for user admin by (uid=0)
Apr 26 00:37:59  httpd:                     pam_unix(httpd:session): session closed for user admin
Apr 26 00:38:13  httpd:                     pam_unix(httpd:session): session opened for user admin by (uid=0)

Now, pardon my French, but what the fuck use is that to anyone? No mention of backup starting, backup finishing, backup failing, backup progress. Not a sausage. There`s only one thing worse than no logging, it`s useless logging. And here we see a combination of both, almost bugger all logging, and what`s there is completely useless. I know I was logged into the web interface – I just want to check my supposed backup!
So it`s likely to be a case of the Toshiba drive becoming a work drive, and having to run rsync to backup to the Lacie as it`s just a little too slow to use as a primary drive over Ethernet. Very disappointed. The drive has been great for a number of months – not spectacularly fast over the home network (wireless G / 100Mb Ethernet – it has Gb Ethernet I believe), so I can`t do the device itself down. But come on guys – what`s the point in using a completely shite backup function as a selling point?  There also doesn`t seem too be a way of upgrading the firmware or operating system short of unofficial hacks, ruling out fixing this awful functionality.  It may work – somehow – under Windows, but if it`s a case of linking two drives and pressing a few buttons, using the advertised method, it`s surprising this simple operation can`t be carried out.  If there had been anything in the logs to suggest too-long filenames, extra-long paths – whatever – I could have done something to rectify.  But zilch.

So it`s off to rsync I go… farting in the general direction of Lacie.  Several times.  Poo poo to you.

Having had the iPhone for a few months now, I thought I`d add a few more peeves to the list.

1. Reliability – I have to say the phone, or more likely the applications, make the phone pretty flakey. It`s necessary to hard reset every 3-4 days due to some application or other hanging. The most annoying thing about this is that the phone takes minutes to start up again, with no progress indicator to show how long it`s likely to take.
2. Lack of tweakiness – in true Apple style, there are some things you`d like to tweak but just can`t. A specific example would be the Safari caching, which is hit and miss to say the least. Switch pages and back, and there`s a good chance the browser has been hit by severe amnesia and needs to reload the page. Even with all the scare stories over the number of times you can write to flash memory, surely allowing the user to up the cache a little would be a good idea?
3. Volume control – why are there two volume settings, one for ringer and one for iPod? Adjust the volume down, pop to iPod, with headphones on, and suddenly you`re at risk of blowing your ears off to the freshest beats of the day.
4. The phone features, or their quick-to-use-ness-ness – any telephone should be easy to use, yet Apple seems to have done everything possible to make it a pain in the arse. I certainly wouldn`t recommend the iPhone as an easy to use phone. Compare and contrast with any Nokia. That said, the voicemail is quite clever, although not instantly “ah yes- that’s how you do it”. Surely, as a phone, the dialler is likely to be the first thing you`re likely to use; why does it not appear first? Maybe I don`t make or receive enough calls.
5. Ipod controls- having owned an iPod for a few years, the iPhone`s controls are a bit pants. Ok, there`s no wheel as it`s all touch screen, but skipping forward and backward in videos is very hit and miss, especially if forwarding to the end of a video podcast. This seems to be the only way for the iPod to recognize that you`ve watched something. 2 seconds remaining and it`s listed with the half-watched icon. Try skipping to the very end, and you`re forced to watch the last 10 seconds or so. It may not be the end of the world, but it`s annoying. Also, the accelerometer integration goes a little bit mental when tilting and the phone needs the occasional twist-retwist in order to recognise its orientation. On the plus side, it`s possible to shuffle all songs by an artist, something my old video iPod wasn`t able to do.
6. Spell checker – this can be very hit and miss, and I find myself wondering if the old T9 method would have been more effective for some users. Also, when typing fairly quickly, it seems like soundex word matching kicks in, leaving your messages in a state that would have been likely employed by Lloyd and Croft when they scripted lines for Officer Crabtree in Allo Allo. Good moaning indeed.  And please, I know the difference between “its” and “it`s”, so don`t put “it`s” every sodding time – and “and” for that matter – don`t spell correct it to ANC.  Who types  “ANC” these days (although I`m not dissing South African politics, of which I know little)?
7. There`s no way back – receive an e-mail, open it, open a hyperlink; up flies Safari. When you`re done, what next? Gotta press the menu button, which brings you back to the menu. So you`ve to open your e-mail all over again. Why is the phone not clever enough to bring you back to where you were?

It`s hard to move without people praising the iPhone.  It really is a nice piece of kit, but I thought I`d list some things I don`t like about it.  Controversy!

1. The Camera is pretty awful.  A little 2MP job that may have been acceptable 2 years ago now looks pretty bad, especially when compared with something like the LG Renoir.
2. Battery life is not very good, with a plethora of Internetty communications going on all the time, leading to…
3. It is a lot of hassle to disable 3G / wireless, involving  jumping in and out of menus – why not the option of adding a button to the main screen?  tap the button to toggle 3G, tap another button to toggle wireless
4. Bluetooth support is .. up there with Sharp`s older flip-top phones .. very limited, especially if you`ve used recent Nokia or Samsung phones and are able to connect up and transfer anything you like between the phone and another phone / computer
5. The brightness control (in settings) more often than not bounces up and down the screen instead of moving left or right – there seems to be a little too much sensitivity there, probably due to it being the only control on the screen
6. Password masking seems to be dangerous – type in a password and the letters remain on screen just a little too long before being masked out, especially given the keyboard popping up large print copies of what you`re typing.  Same goes for the screen lock pass code – the on-screen buttons light up!  It wouldn`t be so hard to stand over someone`s shoulder and grab passwords galore
7. Lockdown – Apple has made it more difficult to get files to and from the device, leading to lots of third party apps, some free, some paid for, to allow you to use the phone as storage – again compare with Nokia who are happy for you to store anything you want on their recent phones

All in all, that`s not so bad, I guess, and there are some super little (free) apps available.

I recently became a sad git and purchased an Apple iPhone.  Apart from the not-so-great battery life, it`s a really nice device!  However, having previously owned an iPod, I was a bit miffed to see that Apple is taking every opportunity possible to squeeze more money out of customers and making it more difficult to just chuck stuff onto the device.

In the UK it`s (at the time of writing) 79p to purchase a song, and the same for a non-free ringtone.  I`m not a fan of buying downloads, mainly because the quality can be utterly shit, and although DRM is decreasing, I just can`t be bothered.  I buy CDs, rip them, and listen to them.  Easy, plus you get a nice little booklet.  Anyway, I thought It`d scoot around the net and find a quick, free way of putting my Mike Oldfield collection onto the phone as annoying ringtones.  So here`s a quick and dirty method to convert your lovely MP3s into ringtones, alarm tones, blah blah blah.  It`s not so quick, however, but it is a free method.

Requirements

• Application capable of converting mp3 (or other file you wish to use) into Apple`s m4a format

• A little knowledge of “fiddling” with Windows Explorer

The two things we need to do are 1) convert our file into Apple m4a format, and 2) rename the file

First up, we`ll prepare Windows Explorer
Launch Windows Explorer, and go to Tools -> Folder Options

• In the View tab, scroll down the list and make sure “Hide extensions for known file types” is disabled.  We want to see the extensions.  If you`re not too techie, the “extension” is the (usually) 3 letter bit stuck onto the end of a filename.  For example photo.jpg, drawing.gif, etc.

Audacity
The application I`ll be using is Audacity, a freebie available for Linux and Windows.  For speed, I`ll use the Windows version – I haven`t tried running iTunes on Linux yet.

• Download and install Audacity from http://audacity.sourceforge.net

The Windows version of Audacity also requires the FFmpeg input/output libraries so Audacity knows how to do the file conversion to Apple format.  This is probably the trickiest bit of the tutorial – for non-techies, Audacity needs a little something extra to do the job.

Install FFmpeg Library, Convert the File
Within Audacity, pop over to the Import / Export menu

Edit -> Preferences -> Import / Export

On the top right, you`ll see the FFmpeg area; Audacity will tell you it`s not installed – because it isn`t.

Click the Download button.  You`ll then be taken to the web page for downloading the library.  When the library has been downloaded, run the ffmpeg<version-number>.exe file (you`ll probably need to do this as Administrator in Vista – god Windows is a pain in the arse), and use Browse to find your Audacity installation (likely to be something like C:\Program Files\Audacity <version-number>) and Extract.  This will pop the library files into Audacity`s installation, making FFmpeg functionality available.

Now for the fun part.  Fire up Audacity – if you haven`t used it before, open your spangly music file, go straight to

File -> Export

Press OK – we`re not worried about tags at this point.  Ensure the “Save as type” drop down has been set to M4A (AAC) Files (FFmpeg) and hit Save.  Your machine will whir and spin for a few seconds as the file is written to disk.

If you`re familiar with Audacity, you can clip the sound file to specific parts you`re interested in, add special effects, etc. before saving.  Be careful not to overwrite your original file, and keep your file to 40 seconds or less – any more and you`ll never hear it as your caller will likely be off to voicemail land!

Rename The File
Using Windows Explorer, find your new file (you`ve probably done the lazy thing and plonked it on your desktop – naughty).  As we configured Windows Explorer to show file extensions earlier on, your file should be listed as <filename>.m4a – unfortunately iTunes will not let you use this as a ringtone.  Right click on the file, and choose Rename.  Now change the extension to .m4r, so if your file was banana.m4a it should now be called banana.m4r – hit return to accept your changes – it will then complain that the file may become unusable.  Less usable than Windows…  This is OK.

Import to iTunes
In Windows, the icon for the file should change after renaming the file.  Double click the file and it will be squirted straight into iTunes, ready for your phone; just sync it up.

ROLL ON CRAZY FROG II!

Updated: after trying a few tracks and successfully transferring them to the iPhone, it seems that a 30-35 second limit applies to the ringtone, otherwise the file will transfer but not show in the options.  That`s useful..  If anyone is bored enough to work out a true figure, be my guest, but 30-35 seconds maximum it seems.  Maybe that`s the 8th thing I don`t like.. it`s nice to lie in bed with the alarm playing something reasonably pleasant instead of “Duck” noises.

- Booting from an existing Linux partition inside Windows Vista

Recently I`ve been playing with Sun`s Virtual Box virtualisation application, needing to gain a bit more experience with Linux (particularly Red Hat, a distribution I`m not really keen on) and Solaris.  The laptop is currently a dual boot affair with Windows Vista (I`m less keen on this than Red Hat, to the point of despise) and Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex.

Ubuntu Linux running from partition - Sun Virtual Box

Having been a bit of a VMWare fan since probably 1999, I thought I`d take a look at Virtual Box and see if it offered anything new or interesting.  So far, things have been pretty promising.  The application feels a lot less sluggish than VMWare.

Although I prefer to work exclusively in Ubuntu, there are times I need to run Vista, or simply can`t be bothered to reboot.  So, after a bit of searching, it appears I can run Virtual Box inside Vista and run from the Linux partition, something I did regularly with VMWare.  Why would you want to do this?  Isn`t this like driving a Ferrari in first gear?  Well yes – anyone who has tried virtualising one system within the other will tell you that a Linux kernel always delivers a better experience when executing Windows than vice versa.  But that`s not going to surprise anyone.

Installed on the disk: Vista, Ubuntu Ibex, GRUB
Host: Vista (eesh)
Guest: Ubuntu

Now for the science bit.

Open a DOS box as Administrator:

Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt  : right clicky and “Run as Administrator”
Swear at the UAC warning

Enter something similar to the following, watching the sodding quotes.  The path to your Virtual Box installation may be different, and c:\temp may not be a great location for your configuration.  However, this will do as an illustration:

C:\temp>"c:\Program Files\Sun\xVM VirtualBox\"\vboxmanage.exe internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename c:\temp\test.vmdk -rawdisk \\.\PhysicalDrive0

Hit return – the hard bit.  With a bit of luck, you`ll see the following:

VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 2.1.2
(C) 2005-2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All rights reserved.

RAW host disk access VMDK file c:\temp\test.vmdk created successfully.

Next run Virtual Box as Administrator: find the application in the Programs menu, right clicky, “Run as Administrator” – swear again.  Create a new virtual machine, point its “virtual disk” at the file above (c:\temp\test.vmdk in this instance), and start it up!  At the GRUB menu, choose the Umbongo Linux entry as normal.  With a bit of a luck, a few minutes later and all should be well with the world, including networking.

A word of warning: it`s never a good idea to attempt to boot an operating system inside itself, so don`t be tempted to try Vista inside Vista or Linux inside Linux.  I did this a couple of times by accident in VMWare (GRUB automatic boot countdown as I went for a coffee) and spent way too long with fsck getting everything working again.

Just to emphasise: Windows`s shitty UAC gets in the way of everything, so these steps must be carried out as Administrator, otherwise you face lots of “unable to access file” type errors.  Lovely!