Well I’ve got the task of creating two Samba File servers at work. Its using the Dell SC440 hardware. I’ve had a few problems with the gfx card in it. Its some ATI based affair. Found that if I install Gnome and other bumpf from the CD/DVD I am able to get an X session. If I don’t and install it after, invoking an init 5 gives me an error stating that the X session started and stopped too many times. This happens with many different configurations of X.
Running a reconfigure of the X service gets me a background and a mouse pointer, but on a reboot back to it crashing the X session and falling back to CLI.
So I’ve just left it at command line only, thats all I need anyway and having X on a server just makes me go all funny.
Random comment of the day, until most computers don’t come installed with an operating system it will always be in the best interests of the person providing that OS to ensure that upgrades to their PCs will, over time slow that machine down.
Got a message through Facebook that they’re new album was available, I knew they had a new single out but I didn’t expect the album to be out for a little while yet.
Anywho, it also said where to buy it and for how much, well 7digital had it on an MP3 non-DRMed download for £5! Thats an acceptable price to pay for a non-DRMed album.
With DRM then I just wouldn’t buy it as I don’t want to be locked into what I can do with my music. At least with these mp3’s I can stick them on my server and play them on my Linux machines which as we know DRM doesn’t exactly work with them in its current guise.
Having the option for an ogg would have been nice but as I don’t have an ogg playing device its best not to bother.
Its not often that I see something released that I like the look of and when I look at the price am even more impressed.
The first thing was the EeePC, which I am on right now, its a cracking little laptop. Unobtrusive, powerful (given its size) and runs Linux.
Now, take the XO, sure I like that too, however its bulkier, looks odd, is bright green and looks more like a toy. I would have gotten an XO laptop, however the give one get one campaign took its time coming to my fair shores so it missed out to the EeePC.
Now, the OLPC association have revealed their concept for the XO-2. I must say I’m very impressed and just hope that they are able to turn this concept into a reality.
Feast your eyes on these pics:
Now, that is enough to make me want one, however they are thinking they can sell this fantastic looking piece of kit for $75. Thats right, $75!!
I highly doubt that they will be able to acheive this and more realistic is $150 which I still think is more then reasonable for it. As long as they don’t do the age old £’s to $’s conversion basically 1 to 1 then I’d probably get several of these. Its what ebooks have been waiting for.
So here it is:
#!/bin/bash
#Downloads Audio from BBC Radio Streams and Outputs it to a dump file
echo "What is the rtsp location of the stream? [ENTER]:”
read stream_loc
echo “What do you want the dump file to be called? [ENTER]:”
read dump_loc
mplayer -dumpstream -dumpfile $dump_loc “$stream_loc”
exit
Now to get hold of the rtsp location for the download you need to obtain the .rpm file and open it with cat or some document reader such as less, more or kate.
Inside that should be a url starting with rtsp.
Once you’ve gotten that file (its going to download it in realtime, so a 2 hour show will take 2 hours) you need to process the file, assuming the dump file is called file.dump
mplayer -ao pcm file.dump
This will output a likely large .wav file in the folder you ran it then do
lame -h -v -b 192 file.wav output.mp3
This will output a 192kbps mp3 file from the converted dump wav file to an mp3.
Was at the cinema recently and a trailer for Hancock came on. I’d not been aware of it until then, I must say it looks rather good. A good take on the Super Hero movie and Will Smith looks to be perfect for the part.
Well according to Slashdot his recent actions at Microsoft are less then favourable in the eyes of the board.
I get the feeling that he won’t be leaving anytime soon and I’m in two minds about this. On the one hand, I think he is mental, totally nuts,, on the other hand, I think he’s quite intelligent. Quite.
I don’t like him when he is cornered, or he is voicing his opinion on something that threatens Microsoft, such as, erm I don’t know Linux.
His quotes range from him saying that “Linux is a cancer” to threatening people who use Linux with the potential that they are breaking the law.
Well, it looks like Adobe has thrown down the Gauntlet to Microsofts Silverlight with their Open Screen Project.
They’ve removed licensing fees on SWF and FLV specs allowing anyone who wants to create a device to avoid the costs of supporting flash.
Their intentions are to make it so that Flash is available on all players. Basically removing the need for developers to consider anything else as if Flash is free, why bother looking elsewhere when its already widely used.
