How I listen to Podcasts

23 Jan
2010

Of the 24 podcasts I currently subscribe to, I probably only make a deliberate effort to listen to about 5 or 6 of them regularly. Late at night, before the sandman arrives, I’ll listen to one or two in bed on my Nokia N95. It is a pain at the best of times manually adding podcast urls to the N95 as there is no way, that I can tell, to add them using either the old Nokia Data Suite or the newer, Nokia Ovi Suite of applications.

So, here was my solution.

I set-up a Google Reader account, and added all the RSS podcast streams to a folder called Podcasts.  I then made this “Podcasts” folder available to the public in the “Manage Subscriptions → Folders & Tags” section.  Head back to the Google Reader front page, clicked on the Podcasts folder and then on the “Show Details” button.  This now presents me with a Feed URL which in my case is:

http://www.google.com/reader/public/atom/user%2F16063141383103939780%2Flabel%2FPodcasts

Obviously, that doesn’t look too pretty, so I lob the url into notepad and do a quick find and replace, changing %2F to a /

My URL now looks like:

http://www.google.com/reader/public/atom/user/16063141383103939780/label/Podcasts

I’ve added that URL into my Web Feeds folder in my Nokia N95 so it will pull down any and all podcasts I subscribe to the “Podcasts” folder of my Google Reader account. This makes the addition, (and removal, if necessary) of any new podcasts I want to subscribe to much easier and comes without any of the messiness of adding or changing anything on the N95 with it’s small keypad.

New MMORPG: Star Trek Online

12 Jan
2010

A new Star Trek MMPOG, Star Trek Online, from Cryptic Studios is due to go live on February 2.  I’m liking the back story videos.  Set 30 years after the last TNG movie, Nemesis, it seems to pit the Federation against the Klingons again.

Update via Slashdot: Today Cryptic Studios will begin the open beta of Star Trek Online, opening their test servers to invitees and anyone who has pre-ordered the game. The beta will run through the 26th, and the game will officially launch on February 2nd; head-start players will be allowed in on January 29th.

See for yourself.

Making Western Waves online

9 Oct
2009

If all goes well, I hope to, in the next few weeks, be co-opted onto the board of a new Community Radio station called Western Waves FM.  The station will hope to cover the South Donegal / North Leitrim area.  My area of responsibility will be in the non-radio broadcast technology elements of the project.

Specifically, this means that I plan to construct the server/client editing and production platform for members to be able to produce their own programming from using either the in house facilities or their own computers, (Windows, Mac or Linux).

With the ESXi server I built a few weeks ago, I can safely test and deploy various network configurations and setups in minutes as opposed to hours or days, depending on what’s required.

So far, I have:

1.    SRV01-DC (Ubuntu 9.04 with DNS, Samba & NTP)
2.    SRV02-MX (Ubuntu 8.04 with Zimbra & Openfire)
3.    SRV03-WS (Ubuntu 9.04 with Apache, PHP5, MySQL & Python)

SRV01-DC will server effectively as a SAMBA Domain Controller for the editing and administration workstations.  It will support for NT4 domain level services and authenticates off the back of Zimbra’s internal LDAP server.  I hope to compliment the Samba file shares with webdav access for remote users of SSL.

SRV02-MX is the Zimbra server.  Currently I’m working off version 5.019 as I cannot, for the life of me get the new version 6 builds to play nicely with Samba.  I think the problem lies somewhere in the new LDAP config for Zimbra.  I’ve also decided to expand the Zimbra’s IM offering by scrapping it and replacing it with Openfire, which is happily authenticating of the LDAP server.  Zimbra will also handle all the email, calendaring and contact sharing for the organisation.

SRV03-WB is the LAMP server for use internally.  On it will be held the station’s music archive which will be accessible in the studio using the ZINA web based jukebox application written in PHP.

There are many things to plan for before, and I’ve not covered everything here, but any and all suggestions will be gratefully received in the comments below.

If all goes well, I hope to, in the next few weeks, be co-opted onto the board of a new Community Radio station called Western Waves FM.  The station will hope to cover the South Donegal / North Leitrim area.  My area of responsibility will be in the non-radio broadcast technology elements of the project.

Biffo’s Downfall

29 Aug
2009

Project Titan: To build an ESXi server for small business

21 Aug
2009

I’ve been pottering around North Leitrim for a while now since I got back from my stay at a Maltese hospital.  The pace of life here is a little slower than I’m used to in Dublin.  I’ve checked out local sources of information, the Sligo Champion, Sligo Post and the Weekender, as well as meetup.com on the Internet front to see if there’s anything interesting to do on the tech front, but alas, the cupboard is bare.

Bottom line: I’m bored and I still have a few bob – What to do?

The only surprise was it took me so long to decide to do this.  I’ve decided to start a project to keep my mind busy and as many of my skills up to date.  I’m going to build an ESX server that will provide all the network services for a business with ~ 200 staff using only free and/or open source software.  And blog about it!

I tweeted @aaronmckenna at Komplett with a few questions on the hardware requirements which he forwarded onto their techs and a day or so later I had my hardware list.

Qty

 Description
1 NOX Cube Basis Series Micro Atx Black
Micro Atx Black windowed version
1 D-Link DWL-G510 PCI 54Mbps
Wireless 802.11g
1 Intel Core? 2 Quad Q9650 3,00 GHz,
Socket 775, 12MB, 1333MHz, Boxed w/Fan
1 Corsair Powersupply 400W, 120mm Fans
6xSATA, ATX/EPS, 1xPCI-E, 20/24pin
1 Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.B 1TB
7200Rpm, 16MB Cache, SATA
1 Gigabyte GA-EG45M-UD2H, G45, Socket-775
m-ATX, GbLAN, DDR2, VGA, PCI-Ex(2.0)x16
2 Corsair TWIN2X PC6400 DDR2 4GB KIT CL5
Kit w/2x 2GB XMS2-6400 dimm’s, CL5-5-5-18, 800MHz
1 Power Adapter from Schuko to UK adapter
earthed 5A

I added the D-Link Wi-Fi Card as I also wanted to test out if I could run a Wireless Access Point off the box as well.  The case, a NOX Cube, was chosen because of its size, had a handle on the front for ease of transport and just looked a bit cool with the glass windows and internal blue light!

The parts for Project TitanThe parts arrived last Friday and I began assembly on Saturday.  After a few incorrect connections from the front panel of the case to the motherboard, I eventually figured it out, pressed the on button, and there was light!

To come: Installation of the ESX server from VMWare and building a Virtual Machine.

Bank Holiday Monday jiggerypokery

1 Jun
2009

Found this on Missing Remote this morning and am going to give it a try: How-To: Integrate BoxeeTV for Windows into Vista Media Center.

Will report back later….

Update: This was shockingly easy, took me 2 mins to do. If all else fails, RTFM!

I really need a challenge!

Wohoo! I have BBC Parliament back!

22 Feb
2009

I just downloaded the Mirawebware plugin for my Vista Media Centre that’s hooked up to my TV, and have access to lots of TV station streams online.

I’ve missed BBC Parliament since I had to ditch Sky Digital when I moved into an apartment block that won’t allow you to put up a dish.  For political geekery, it doesn’t come much better than BBC P.

I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon seeing what other new web streams I now have on my television. I hope C-SPAN is there too!

Is Cable a Bargain or a Big Waste?

15 Feb
2009
The Dodgy Box

The Dodgy Box

For many people in Ireland, Sky Digital is not an option as many, especially in urban areas, live in apartment complexes with restrictive policies on the mounting of satellite dishes.

With the exception of a few small localised cable providers such as Casey Cablevision in Waterford or South Coast TV in Cork, many are forced to go to UPC. UPC Ireland was setup after a protected merger between the two dominant cable companies in Ireland, NTL and Chorus.  UPC have spent the last two years fighting a losing battle against the so called “Dogybox”.  A hacked set-top box that decodes all of the encrypted cable TV channels for the monthly price of UPC’s basic analogue cable service.  Rumours have abounded for months that UPC are on the verge of implementing a new type of encryption so that the “Dogybox” will no longer work and thus turn as many basic analogue customers into full paying digital ones.

What if it’s all pointless?

UPC already provides a healthy 20MB Internet Connection with a I.5MB uplink and no download cap called Broadband Ultra.  With more and more people downloading television episodes, as well as movies, from torrent websites, could UPC be spending a lot of money shooting themselves in the foot?  How long will it be before a small form factor, silent and internet connected PC running something along the lines of Boxee becomes available using Irish based services similar to Hulu in the U.S.?

Fun with PHPMotion!

7 Feb
2009

PHPMotionI’ve had a lot of fun, in a good way, this week, working with PHPMotion, a media sharing CMS.  It’s been bit tricky installing oall the necessary encoders but by no means impossible.  There is also extensive support on their forums.  If there is need for media distribution at your end this will more than fill the gap.  You can get a full feature list here.  I like that everything is stored in MySQL as I can customise a different version for different platforms, ie: mobile phones, PDA’s as well as games consoles like the PS3 or the Wii.

PHPMotion is ideal for working with a number of WordPress themes, specifically “On Demand” from Press 75.  I like this because I can prevent users from leaving comments on videos.  You might think that’s a little counter intuitive in a Web 2.0 world, but orders have come down from above that this feature is not to be enabled. To be fair I can understand, we are not the most beloved organisation in Ireland!

We hope to launch this service within the next month.

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