My Digital Home

I've just been watching this week's episode of Click on the BBC, and in particular the item on digitally connected media, and thought that someone may find it interesting to read about how the media in my house is connected.

The 'hub' is my media server, running mythtv, which has 4 tuner onboard, 3 dvb-t (freeview in the UK), and a pvr-150 connected to my cable box. The server also has slimserver installed for mp3 playback. The server is also a frontend and is connected to the families main TV for playback of media.

As well as tv recordings, it also houses the family's digital photos, the familes music collection encoded to MP3. I am currently about halfway through importing the collection of DVD's to hard disk.

We have 2 laptops connected, both of which have tahe shared media drive from the mythtv server mapped to allow browsing and playback of media wirelessly.

Both laptops have mythtvplayer, which is a small application which allows playback of mythtv recordings, as well as the ability to stream live tv from the server.

I have also installed softsqueeze (slimdevices squeezebox emulator) for playback of mp3 and internet radio streams. and smplayer for playback of video files, and dvd rips from the network share.

We also have 2 Nokia internet tablets which can playback media, either stored locally on sd cards, or stream from the server wirelessly. Recordings and ripped dvds can also be saved onto the tablets storage for remote playback.

New N800

Been a bit quite. I was given the nod to buy an N800 Internet tablet for christmas, and it's seemed like a long wait.
It's here now and was flashed straight away to 2008OS, and the difference over a 770 is amazing. The new OS is a big improvement in usablity over 2007, so much so thats it is hard to believe that it is only one revision.

It's now almost largely setup as I want. Key applications are of course Maemo Mapper, VNCviewer, Gnumeric, GPE Calendar, and xterm, which of course now standard with 2008.

Here's my home screen. I love the new look of 2008, especially the semi-transparent applet backgrounds.
One of the main uses for the new tablet will be as a media player replacing my aging, and heavily used Archos Gmini 400. I've been playing and evaluating the main players out there, and will report on this shortly.

Geeks on Tour

You may like this photo taken this afternoon on the A1(m) travelling back to the north-east from Nottingham



2 Nokia 770's side by side in a incar holder. the one on the left (mine) is running Maemo Mapper navigation with a bluetooth GPS unit, and the one on the right (james') is running CarMan engine diagnostic software showing live engine data collected by a bluetooth ODBII inteface plugged in to a socket in the car's cabin. Unfortunately my camera phone is rubbish. We also took some with James' phone, and I may post them later if they are better.

We downloaded and installed carman over a 3G mobile phone connection. We were also running Satnav software on James' phone connected to another bluetooth GPS receiver.

Maemo Mapper came into it's own though as a zoomable moving map, as the M1 northbound was closed. The conventional satnav was trying it's damnest to get us back on the M1 as soon as we turned off. MM just let us zoom out and look to plan our own route across to the A1, using it as an electronic road map.

The other major plus of MM over conventional satnav, is the ability to use satellite images as the map which is very useful when navigating complex road networks in a strange town.

'bout time I started using this thing!

Well I signed up for this back in 2005, when I was bored at work one afternoon, and have let it stagnate ever since. So here goes with the intro. I intend to start posting much more frequently, about my interests and gismos, and what I do with them.

Geek stuff includes a Mythtv system with 4 tuners, and a Nokia 770 internet tablet. Oh! and I'm also into RC helicopters, just not very good with them!

first entry

I've finally created a blog, somewhat surprising, considering most people who know me reckon I'm a bit geeky.

Stuff that makes me tick includes bicycles and cycling, especially moultons (google it if you're not sure), Walking and technology. I'm a keen user of Mythtv. Mythtv is a PVR, similar to tivo or Sky+, but free, runs on a std PC, and is very cool and expandable. (www.mythtv.org) I'll add at somepoint why I think it's great, and what my setup is.