Sansa Clip 2GB

I’ve owned this for about a month now.  I’ve had a 80GB Zune for 7 or 8 months, I purchased the Zune because of its display and I didn’t want an iPod (though all my music is purchased on iTunes).

I wanted a flash-based device that was cheap that I could use in the gym.  I searched around, saw what was available and I chose the Sansa Clip for a couple of reasons.  It’s TINY! It has a Radio and it’s relatively inexpensive.

So I got it…I really can’t believe how TINY this thing is.  Seriously, it’s little!  For it’s intended purpose, the sound quality is good, volume is capable of blasting (if you like that sort of thing).  I don’t know if it my particular house, but the radio reception leaves a little something to be desired, but what do you want from a very little mp3 player?

Here is what I like about this little thing the most.  I washed it!  I completely forgot about in my pants pocket (yes it is that small) and washed it and dried it…and it still works!  This is not to say that you would have the same success, but I was so happy to find that it does in fact work.

Another thing I like..plug it in, it’s found and loads up wonderfully in Windows Media Player. Simple, drag-and-drop of the tracks, click ’sync’ and you’re on your way.  I like the amount of content available on iTunes, I hate Windows Market Place and for that matter, I dislike the software that is packaged with the Zune — Why can’t I use Windows Media Player on a device from Microsoft?

Would I buy another one?  Without a doubt! Would I recommend it to someone else?  Absolutely!  Go get one!

Ubuntu 7.04 — I’m disappointed

Look at my other posts, I love Ubuntu. I go to other Distros to see what they have, I keep coming back to Ubuntu. Primary reason for coming back? Hardware recognition. Plain and simple, Ubuntu in the past saw all of my hardware and offered better support than any other Distro I have tried. Not this time.

A little background — I purchased an Inspiron 6000 3 years ago to take to Vegas with me. I was in Vegas for 4 days, after I got back I installed Ubuntu (see my other posts). I was successful in getting Ubuntu to work (better than Fedora or SuSE). I was happy with Ubuntu on my notebook, which is why I decided to install it on my new notebook. How did I get my new notebook, warranty exchange from Dell. New notebook is an Inspiron e1705/9400.

Run down on hardware:

• Intel Core 2 Duo 1.83GHz
• 2GB DDR 667MHz
• 80GB 5400RPM HDD
• ATI x1400 256MB Video Card
• DVD-RW
• Dell 1390 Wireless

Originally equipped with Windows Media Center 2005, but eligible for a free upgrade to Vista Home Premium, I’ve had both operating systems on the computer. My choice was Windows Media Center. Vista runs well, but in my opinion not meant for the desktop (or at least mine).

With such great success with my Inspiron 6000 and Ubuntu 6.06, I figured I’d give the e1705 and Ubuntu 7.04 a run. FAILURE. How horrible! The live CD wouldn’t even run on the hardware. X failed, braodcom chipset (wireless) failed. What a mess, and what a step back for Ubuntu. As I was able to get 6.10 to load, though I still didn’t have wireless.

So I installed 6.10, then upgraded to 7.04 through Synaptic, and X FAILED!!! I found an article that fixed my problem, so that part was covered. Still no success with my wireless. After searching Ubuntu Forums, and trying a few things, still no success. Until I found the article that I have linked to below. The solution worked so easily it wasn’t even funny. Why it is not integrated into Ubuntu out of the box, I don’t know. Why Ubuntu has not done something similar, I don’t know. But in my opinion a tool like this is needed for greater wireless support, not just the Broadcom chipsets.

It was frustrating, and the first time in a while that I have been very frustrated with Ubuntu. I know the hardware is not really Linux Specific, had I chosen the components for the computer, it would have had an Nvidia video card and an Intel Wireless card in it, but this is how I got the notebook from Dell.

Next problem…On my Shuttle at home, I can run with the Desktop features on, Beryl is not supported on the ATI X1400 video card. Not to say it hasn’t worked, and I haven’t tried a few things, it is just sad to see Ubuntu in this current state of lack of hardware support.

What will I do? Probably sell this e1705/9400 and replace it with either a Power Book from Mac or a notebook from System76. All in time, but here have been my .03 cents on Ubuntu 7.04 on an Inspiron e1705/9400.

HOWTO: Broadcom 43xx based wireless cards the EASY way.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=405990

Well I found the above on UbuntuForums after I decided to install Ubuntu 7.04 on my Dell Inspiron e1705/9400. If you have a broadcom chipset wireless card, following the above link is in my opinion the best way to do it.

Another Reason to Make the Switch to a Mac

I found this article from PCWorld sort of comical in regards to the fastest notebook to run Vista.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136649-page,3-c,notebooks/article.html

For those who didn’t read the article, the fastest notebook running Vista was actually a Mac!

MythTV AGAIN!

well last night I gave up on Myth, decided to sell all the hardare that I have purchased and was going to buy a Tivo with a year subscription.

I woke up this morning, with a bit of information via the Ubuntu Forums. I decided ONE more time.

Here is what it is..Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Alternate Install per the Instructions at the Ubuntu Wiki https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MythTV_Dapper_Backend_Frontend

With a little help from http://parker1.co.uk/mythtv_ubuntu.php . Now I say a little, but in reality, my stuff is working because of that with the help from the Wiki. The wiki has you create a user, then lets mythtv-setup create a user called mythtv and you add yourself to that group. I couldn’t get that to work. With the parker how-to, I created a user called mythtv, log in as that user, run everything all is well as far as installation.

Here is where I’m stuck –

• No Remote — Hauppage 45-button silver remote with the 4 colored buttons at the bottom. IRW outputs nothing, but LIRC does start w/o errors. Batteries are good. Steps followed from here https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Install_Lirc_Edgy Again, IRW throws nothing out, I found lircrc.conf, lircd.conf and lircmd.conf all from the LIRC’s remote page. Per the link, the command ‘irrecord’ was used to record the buttons on my remote. Now this was my first attempt, and I missed a few buttons and as I learn Myth more, I may change a few things, but now I am able to navigate the menus, select things, and change channels.
• No Video-out on S-Video. Motherboard has an Nvidia Chipset MX440 with S-Video, upon boot, s-video works, X starts and video is gone. I did follow the instructions found here, but the TV does not display properly. I also have a PVR-350 card, S-video out does not work. Per the Ubuntu wiki https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MythTV_Edgy_hardware_pvr-350_TV-out, all troubleshooting steps are successful to determine that ivtv is installed correctly, but when I go to do the /sbin/rmmod saa7127 and /sbin/modprobe saa7127 test_image=1 Nothing happens on my TV. Here is the great thing about the last line on that wiki “If it’s not working check your cable Connections and then retry the steps. If it’s still not working, google IVTV, or post on a forum.”
• Note Set-Top Box. I have Digital Cable, a Motorola DTC-2244, PVR-350 gets no video period when hooked to the box, run it off of straight cable, and all is well in the world.
• Only local programming. Channels 2 – 15 are viewable, everything else is snow. Running on local programming, I’d hope I could get Channels up to 100 or wherever it goes. Digital cable I have over 500 channels, and I definitely need them or Myth is again worthless to me. This was resolved by ‘Mythtv-setup’ -> General -> Channel Frequency. By Default it was set it us-bcast, I changed it to us-cable and I was able to past local programming.
• USB-UIRT — I wanna be able to control my Motorola DTC-2244 Cable Box. I purchased the USB-UIRT thinking I was going to use Sage when I gave up on Myth a while back. Had I known it wasn’t as well supported as I would have liked in Linux, I wouldn’t have bought it. Reading over on MythTV Talk forums there seems to be a number of people who have been successful getting it to work. Now weeather they’re getting it to just recieve or if they’re able to get it to send that is the question. I was able to plug the USB-UIRT in, and with lirc-0.8.1, run the setup to configure a USB device, specifically a USB-UIRT from the menu. After the setup, I can press buttons on my remote, and I get a light, which means it is getting something. If I do a ‘cat /dev/ttyUSB0′ I get Â
  %-ü
  ^X
  Which makes me believe that it is seeing the buttons being pressed, it just doesn’t know what those buttons are yet. I’m thinking I need to do an irrecord for this device.

O verall, performance between menu screens is slow at best on an AMD XP 2400+ with 512MB of RAM. Video on the monitor is not digital quality, but I’ve seen worse.

I’m happy I’ve made it this far, but I’m not sure if it is all worth it. For the time and the amount of money I have in this box now, I could have had a less stressful life and bought a Tivo. I love linux, I love open source, but some things just don’t work ‘out of the box’ just yet.

I’ll update this post as I knock down the list above trying to get everything resolved. If I don’t have everything resolved by Sunday night before I go to bed, all parts will be on e-bay and a Tivo will be ordered.

UPDATE: 7/11/07 :: 11:54AM MST

Box ran all night, I should have scheduled a recording just to test that. Everything has been running great, no issues with video playback or sound. The picture is a little dark, but it could be my monitor. I still don’t have TV-Out working yet.

MythTV Again

Well Ubuntu 6.10 has MythTV 0.20 supported in the repositories, and installation is definitely much easier than it has ever been.

But I still can’t get Lirc to work Testing it, I can press buttons, and get an output in my terminal, but in Myth, nothing works.

I’ve given up for the time being…maybe in 7.04 it’ll be even better.

MythTV Revisted

If you scroll down, you’ll see my first experience with MythTV earlier this year…I took another whack at it this last weekend.

No this is not an I hate linux rant, I actually have it on one of my desktops, and on my notebook. I very much like Linux, and am awaiting the day when I can convert 100%.

Anways, my little trek with MythTV started a number of months back, and at that time unsuccessful, moreso because of hardware issues I was facing, than the software.

Move to this past weekend…Hardware is working well, and I’m off. I had downloaded ZenWalk linux and wanted to see what it was all about. Hardware detection was great, everything functioned as I could hope it would, so I said, what the hey, lets see if we can get MythTV installed. Found that ZenWalk was based on Slackware, and though new to me (slackware), I figured again why not. I have to say, there seems to be a lack of a how-to for something more recent (hardware/software available). The how-tos seemed out-dated. I know, I’m bitching and should do it myself. Anyways, I’m too dependable upon apt-get, and was lost with packagemanagement with Netpkg. Strike 1.

I had the latest version of KnoppMyth downloaded and burned to a CD, when trying to install I initially encountered an error — uncertain what, tons of characters (not letters or anything of the sorts) on the screen that made no sense. I figured it was a bad burn.

Burned new disk for KnoppMyth and it installed. Everything was running smoothly, no complaints — Until I rebooted. As previously in the past when I had tried to install KnoppMyth, after a reboot on it’s booting up, it seemed to ‘tank’ (for a lack of better terms) on the ivtv initilizing. I’m uncertain what caused this, everything functioned fine, but after that reboot, it was done for. I was getting stressed at this point. Strike Two!

I like Ubuntu, and always seem to come back to it. It has actually been on my notebook for almost a year now (if not longer), and I’m very pleased with it. So I figure, why not use the distro I like the most? Well I started with a copy of 6.06 I had burned here. I did the cdtest and was successful with no errors. Everything installed fine and functioned as it should.

First attempt of install MythTV, failure. Per the number of how-to’s on the WWW, I seemed to get stuck at the linking of directories when uncompression/compiling ivtv drivers. No big deal, lets start over.

2nd attempt…Failure. Environment all set up, everything seems to be going smoothly (I’m excited), but for some reason I am unable to connect to the database. After a number of attempts to COMPLETELY uninstall Mysql/phpmyadmin and everything associated with it (as well as Mythtv at that time), I was unsuccessful, and felt like I was running around in circles. Still not giving up. Per a few searches on this site, one that said that MythTV .20 was supported in Edgy, why not upgrade?

Upgraded to Edgy, personally I cannot tell a difference between Edgy and Dapper, but that’s for another topic. MythTV .20 is in the repositories and everything appeared to be functioning wonderfully, again until MySQL setup. I’m not sure why I’m lost here. I have setup and used Mysql on a few servers that hosted wordpress, phpbb as well as Invisionboard. So though I am not a ‘master’ when it comes to Mysql, I knew that I should be able to successfully setup mysql w/o issues. Stike 3 — I gave up on Ubuntu

Now this is like 10PM Sunday night, I’ve been sitting in front of this computer for a LONG time hoping to make something work. Google showed me Mythdora. Now I had Fedora Core 3 on a small server set on my home’s DSL for over a year w/o ANY issues, so I liked it, but left it for Ubuntu 5.04/5.10. Again, I liked apt-get, and hated rpm-based distributions. But I wasn’t really worried about the distrobution as I was getting a solid/functioning MythTV box up and running.

Typical Fedora Core install, nothing spectacular, longer than KnoppMyth, like the GUI installer a lot, very professional. A step ahead of Ubuntu, and a step behind SuSE. Installed, restarted, configured….SUCCESSFUL.

Here are my final thoughts on this little adventure.
KnoppMyth is a great idea, love that it is based on Knoppix (debian based), it seems dated though (compared to Zenwalk, Ubuntu, MythDora). I personally cannot say much more as I could never seem to get a good install.

Per the ‘how-to’s on installing/configuring MythTV, there is no consistency from one how-to to another. I realize that there is always more than one way to do something, but for a ‘newbie’ it is challenging and confusing making heads or tales on what the next step should be per the how-to you’re following. And if you messed up somewhere along the lines during the install, and look at another how-to, which one is right, which one is wrong? Essentially neither are wrong or right because I’m assuming the author was successful in their installations because that is why they’re writing they’re how-to. It was also sort of evident that either a couple of how-tos were written by the same person verbatim or a copy/paste had taken place.

So why did I write this. I needed to vent to ppl I hope could understand the stresses. This is not so much a rant/hateful post in anyway.

I like Ubuntu too much to give up. I’m gonna take what I’ve learned, what I CAN learn and try and create Mythbuntu. I recently read on Digg that KnoppMyth was going to be converted over to Ubuntu, but no official release had been given yet, and I don’t believe everything on the internet, so I’ll believe it when I see it.

This is something I’ve wanted to do, I honestly have no idea what I’m getting myself into, but i hope a great experience that with a great return. I want to create something that is based on *buntu, and allows for a simpler means of installing/configuring MythTV.

So for those of you who are still reading…Thanks! For those of you who scrolled to the bottom, you didn’t miss anything.

Wanted: Open Source CSS Editor

My notebook is running Ubuntu 6.06 LTS and I can’t run the latest version of Dreamweaver, so I went searching to see what was out there. Google gave me this (Google: Open Source CSS Editor). I went here (W3.org : CSS Editors). Based on the W3.org suggestions, I downloaded Bluefish and Amaya.

My Initial Thoughts: I don’t review every single feature, and as the beginning of this line says ‘Initial Thoughts’. I’ll install it, start it, open a CSS file, and then attempt to edit that file. I don’t need it to do anything else for me. I can preview with Swiftfox of Firefox, and I can ftp with gFTP. What I am looking for. I wanted syntax highlighting and auto completion/code hinting. gEdit supports syntax highlighting, but doesn’t do the code hinting, so really I was looking for an editor that has CSS support with code hinting/auto completion.

Bluefish (http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/index.html) :

• Pretty intuitive to use
• Syntax Highlighting
• Did not support code hinting

Amaya (http://www.w3.org/Amaya/):

• Older Interface
• When trying to open file types, you set filters for the file type you’re looking for. Default is *.htm*. To me it was just a pain to change ‘htm’ to ‘css’
• Syntax Highlighting
• Did not support code hinting

Though I could have settled for Blue Fish, I hate to settle and was determined to find either a plugin that offered code hinting or another Open Source solution for a CSS editor that offered code hinting. So I went to the Ubuntu Forums (http://www.ubuntuforums.org) and searched for CSS Editors. I was led to Blue Fish (see above), nvu (http://www.nvu.com), screem (http://www.screem.org), eclipse (http://www.eclipse.org), Aptana (http://www.aptana.com).

Initial Thoughts on the above:

nvu:

• Already Had it — downloaded it a while back to do some simple editing
• WYSIWYG Editor –
• If you like Front Page for Windows, nvu seems most similar to Front Page
• Syntax Highlighting
• No Code Hinting
• Really just not my cup of tea

Screem:

• lightweight
• very similar to nvu
• syntax highlighting
• no code hinting

Aptana:

• When viewing the site, it appeared to be everything I wanted it to be
• Couldn’t get it to install — I’ll be the first to say, I had to clue with the .bin extension
• Never did get it installed, but did find some great how-to information on the Ubuntu Forums
• Does have a plug-in that is fully supported in Eclipse

Eclipse:

• Easy to install
• Seems ‘heavy’
• Doesn’t seem to be directed towards (x)html/css
• Most of the menus and toolbars are worthless/pointless for what I’m doing
• Syntax Highlighting
• Able to Install the Aptana Plug-in

So here’s what I’ve got…Eclipse (http://www.eclipse.org), Configured Eclipse to download the Aptana plug-in (http://www.aptana.com) via these directions from http://aptana.com/docs/index.php/Plugging_Aptana_into_an_existing_Eclipse_configuration :

To plug Aptana into an existing Eclipse configuration:

1. From the Help menu in Eclipse, select Software Updates > Find and Install… to open an Install/Update pop-up window.
2. On the Install/Update pop-up window, choose the Search for new features to install option, and click the Next button.
3. Set up a new remote site to scan for updates.
   1. Click the New Remote Site… button to open a New Update Site pop-up window.
   2. On the New Update Site pop-up window, type “Aptana” in the site Name text box.
   3. In the URL text box, type the URL for the Aptana update site: http://update.aptana.com/update/ and click OK.
   4. Click the Finish button to open an Updates window.
4. On the Updates window, check the Aptana box, and click the Next button.
5. Choose the option to accept the terms of the license agreement, and click the Next button.
6. Click the Finish button.Aptana promps you to enter a username and password.
7. Specify the username and password to access the Aptana web site.Eclipse scans for updates
8. Click the Install All button.

Eclipse installs the Aptana plug-in. To finish the installation process, follow the prompts to shut down and re-start Eclipse.

To access all of Aptana’s features as they are described in the Aptana documentation, you will need to change your Eclipse Perspective to the Aptana perspective. See Changing your Eclipse Perspective for instructions on how to change your Eclipse Perspective.

Final Thoughts:

Does everything I need it to do…Maybe I’ll just install Aptana as Eclipse has a lot of features and such that I do not need. So…tonight — Success.

If anyone has any suggestions for Open Source Editors that Support CSS, have syntax highlighting and code hinting, feel free to post up. I’m always open to new software.

UPDATE:

In Regards to the Post for Quanta…Nice Interface, has syntax highlighting, but did not see any means to enable code hinting. Also, I didn’t play around much with settings, but the syntax highlighting seemed to be 2 or 3 colors — dark colors at that.

Personally I just want something that works out of the box, and Eclipse with Aptana gives me that better than anyone else.

Enjoyed installing Quanta and using it, just not what I was looking for.

Shuttle SN41G2 — New Myth Box

So…A coworker upgraded his sister’s computer to something a little newer and left behind a Shuttle XPC SN41G2 Barebones system (except it isn’t barebones!!).

AMD 2500+ XP Processor

512MB PC2700

Needs a HDD to be complete. I’m gonna make this my new MythTV box.

Will update as time/progress happens

8/7/06

Failure…Complete and 100% failure.

I can’t get the onboard nice or a USB NIC to function properly, so I’m unable to update MythTV.

BTW, KnoppMyth is GREAT. I love it! Just wish I had network connectivity.

More to follow as I learn more soon.

KnownHost — Month 1.5

A little history…

2.5 years ago, I wanted to start developing in some sort of web language. A friend of mine is an ASP/.Net developer and suggested a shared plan with http://www.gearhost.com. I signed up for 1 year (never do that again with anyone). Anyways, when it was up, I couldn’t ask for more, but more often than not it would go down, and I’d get the ‘everything looks fine, it must be you’ reply.

I worked for a Non-profit mental health care provider for 3 years, and managed an IIS server, so I knew my way around, and hated those replies. Response to tickets were prompt, but I just never felt like I got a straight answer.

It got to the point here about 1.5 months ago that all my sites just dropped like flys. That was the straw that broke the camels back. The prior week, about 10:50PM MST – 11:15 PM MST, my sites would be down. I contacted my host and they told me that a service/application was causing me to go over my usage allotment, but wouldn’t say what. When the sites went down, I moved.

I found this site (WHT) and started browsing. I wondered if a Dedicated box wasn’t necessary, because for all I knew, something was causing my site to not function in a shared environment. When searching Dedicated boxes, I heard about VPS (knew nothing about it before) and thought, maybe this is a stepping stone. I went searching, browsing for days reading reviews, seeing who was who and such…Found a name, searched it, found another, searched it. Finally walked into the ‘Offers’ section and saw knowhost offering first 2 months for half-off. I figure worse case scenario, I could always cancel (I’d hate having to move again, but such is life). Anyways, signed up Monday morning about 12:30AM. Woke up about 10AM and there were 3 e-mails waiting for me — one was a welcome, the other was all the necessary info required to get logged in and setup, and the 3rd was just a notification of charges.

I purchased the VPS L Account with Plesk, and have since added the PleskPowerPack (to get SpamAssasin).

I currently have 5 domains hosted w/o issue. Have only experienced one little slow down with the CP, and just logged into Viturozzo and restarted httpd — now I don’t know if it was necessary, but to me, when all else fails, restart. Back up, have experienced no issues since, have never seen a bit of down time and with that, I couldn’t be happier.

Now to the biggest thing that makes me very HAPPY about choosing KnownHost. Their service!!! I’ve been a hobby-linux user for a couple of years, so I’m not afraid of the command line, but definitely not always comfortable in a text-based editor. Anyways, no matter what the question might be, I always get a quick response. I’ve opened a ticket at 4AM MST and have had a reply 10 mins later. I’ve never not recieved a reply after hours, I’d imagine they are staffed 24/7.

The replies I recieve have never been generic, always explaining what something is, and how to do it. Often I have asked, how I might do something, or a better way to do something, and have always recieved a very informative reply. Earlier this week I had setup a new domain, and a customer of mine was experiencing issues accessing his site (DNS specifically, their agents took the time to help me troubleshoot the issue to make certain that it was not an issue with my server) — talk about going out of their way to support the customer.

Over all, I COULD NOT be HAPPIER with the service that I have recieved with Knownhost.

Sorry for the short story, but felt it was necessary….My personal opinon is you can’t go wrong hosting with KnownHost.