Pan Admun Republic of Western Blog

From "My tagged link dump":

• 兒 時 拾 趣 - Things do/say when we were kids

This week, I reported 2 problems.....

Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 adapter failed to work after network manager/firmware upgrade. Few days later it was failed with a kernel upgrade to 2.6.22, but it caused a new problem on Gnome sensor applet.

From "My tagged link dump":

• 好人愈好，壞人更壞 (香港仔公國) - Quote: "所以假若有人要欺凌我，我會好好保存和展示他對我的欺凌，而不是關掉留言功能，又或者封網洗板"

From "My tagged link dump":

• RPM Fusion - Aims to bring together many packagers from various 3rd party repos

我沒有太大興趣,也不想去想這事.

只可說欺凌不可長..... 除非你是那種到處放火,自找是非的人 (then you deserve it).

一向以來自己很小心在網上暴露私隱,因為有見先例.所以在blog上很小談公司/工作上的事,自建的web album也大部份加了password.

行文方面也很着意不談太私人的事.如上次寫初吻,因為不想透露太多,在改了又改之後自己才意識到可以接受的底線其實很高.這題目己過了底線.(事實是其實不應寫.....)

Bottom line,我們要向自己在網上的一言一行負責.

From "My tagged link dump":

• Tivo - A DVR with service to schedule and download movie
• Sling - A DVR that able to stream tv over the network
• Live P2P Television: Streaming Now (TechCrunch)
  - Some up and coming p2p tv service, MIA from the article included joost and Miro

It's been awhile since I moved to Teksavvy, things are running good and very stable. There was once a schedule outage, but it was announced ahead of time. I am impressed with their service.

Meanwhile, I checked on Speakeasy to see how fast my DSL is.

A picture worths a thousand words:

From "My tagged link dump":

• FFmpeg - A solution to record, convert and stream audio/video

There has been a lot of hype out there about Slingbox, which allow one to stream their cable TV over network. People are able to watch their own cable TV from mobile.

Being a 1/4 geek, I like to play around to see how it works. On the other hand, I am a guy likes to re-invent the wheel (but cheap). So, I often like to try out cool open source alternatives.

I finally get around to find some time to try out TV streaming over network like what Slingbox does.

My Linux server at home already equipped with 2 TV capture cards. I use one of them for TV recording, which leave the other one for streaming TV.

As for software, there seem to be many choices out there; ffmpeg, VLC, Flumotion, and Helix DNA server. From this list, I picked ffmpeg. It has the complete solution to stream from TV capture card to asp/flv/mpg and other formats. However, I found its document is somewhat lacking. Fortunately, with some help form the mailing list I was able to get a basic setup working.



Even with the streaming working, I am still ironing out some issues; Audio/video is not in sync; Stream is not reliable over Wifi; Unable to stream outside my home LAN as the stream seem to consume too much bandwidth. (??)

Hopefully, I can eventually able to stream it to work and my cellphone over GPRS (or EDGE). Also, I might try out other solutions as well in the future.

From "My tagged link dump":

• Susan Wong 訪問
• 《I Wish You Love》Susan Wong (五師兄字)
• GoogleTel (Telecom's Tsunami) - Ubiquisys (Femtocells) + Bandwidth (Dark Fiber and 700MHz Spectrum) + Grand Central (One Number ID) - Wondering how this will change our life, particularly the telco scene in US. Any opportunity for hyper-connectivity in it?
• Mobile GMaps - A java based map program using Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps and Windows Live Local - It works for Moto Ming
• J2MEMAP - Java Google map client with GPS support

From "My tagged link dump":

• lguest - A simple x86 hypervisor for Linux
• Pyro - A firefox extension to integrate trusted web contents and extensions onto linux desktop environment
• fit-PC - A fanless tiny PC

From "My tagged link dump":

• Zonbu - Another small form factor PC running Linux

From "My tagged link dump":

• Koolu - A thin-client net appliance small form factor PC
• 廣播穿梭75年 -- 廣播道
  - Information on HK TV history

From "My tagged link dump":

• Pareto Principle (Confide in me)
  - A good little side note from the math/stats point of view on 名士
• Flickr 與香港政府攜手共毀香港自由 (Just a Sidekick)

From "My tagged link dump":

• 暗黑名士谷階研究 1「攝石玩交人」 (暗黑熱血)
  - sarcastic, but some truth in it
• 暗黑谷階名士研究 2「搞風搞雨、頂你過廢」 (暗黑熱血)
• 暗黑谷階名士研究 3「表理有冇？」 (暗黑熱血)
• 解讀香港blog文化 (草飛之階～jovisky)

The saga continue. Most recently reported bugs are not resolved yet, but we are making progress while they are being investigated.

The latest problem I reported is about mail-notification eat up CPU while connection down.

Network Manager has updated, those scary logs are mostly gone, but still not as stable as it can be.

A problem on thunderbird is fixed temporarily, after a search to bugzilla.

On the other hand, I am still trying to setup DVD viewing, mplayer seem not playing the DVD properly yet.

From "My tagged link dump":

• 香港高登
• my-radio

From "My tagged link dump":

• Why DRM won't ever work (ZDNet)
• OpenWengo - A softphone which allows making free PC to PC video/voice calls, with IM, SMS support
• MotorolaFans.com - Forums for many Moto phone, included Ming
• 中国移动天使 - A Chinese mobile infor site with info on Ming A1200

A good piece explains why DRM won't work. Those people struck in the past should realize that. Period.

Unless users are denied the right to the material physically (refuse to sale me that Harry Potter movie) or the mean to access it (do not manufacture DVD players), someone will find a way to get those bits and bytes to the open.

Please join the post-Internet world/economy.

Why DRM won't ever work | Tech News on ZDNet

From "Pending to read":

• Anatomy of the Linux networking stack
• ONLamp.com -- The Power of Google Gears (Part 1)

From "My tagged link dump":

• WAMP5 - A webserver suite using Apache, MySQL, and PHP on Windows
• XAMPP - Another Apache, MySQL, and PHP suite for windows
• Unofficial Google Advanced Search

From "My tagged link dump":

• 人傳人變種或是同時有靈感？ (【不加思索。無樂不作】)
  - The good old days and what we did when we are kids
• 你講過以下的說話未？ (【不加思索。無樂不作】)
  - Wow, bring back kids memory.

From "My tagged link dump":

• Lenovo ThinkPad T60 Review
• 法國菜之一：瘦佬‧龍蝦濃湯‧花瓜 (五師兄字)
• 法國菜之二：開懷大嚼煎鴨肝 (五師兄字)

From "My tagged link dump":

• HTML DOM Tutorial
• JavaScript Tutorial (w3 school)

Finally start using my Lenovo Thinkpad T60 after install Fedora 7.



I upgraded the RAM from 1GB to 2GB.



Good:
- The laptop is lighter, thinner than T30
- It's quiet and cooler, thanks to the Intel Core 2 Duo CPU
- Brighter LCD screen, compare to T30
- With Intel's VT, I can run XP in QEMU, which is newly included in F7
- Battery able to run for ~2 hours

Not so good: Even through it's still a solidly built laptop, but I found it slightly filmsy (maybe I am just too picky).

1) The palm rest on the left side (above the PC card slot) is quite thin and I can feel its flex as my hand pressing on it



2) The side of the palm rest has some rough edges, which keep irritate my hand as I type.



3) I found the LCD screen somewhat filmy. There are two pivots on both side of the laptop, but I found the screen bend slightly when my hand holding it in the middle. I guess that's why the latest T61 has screen roll-cage to better protect it.



4) The battery slot is not snug and I can feel it sliding around in the slot when it rest on my lap.



5) The Ultranav looks the same when compared to my old T30, but the buttons for the trackpoint no longer paint on the tip. I found it looks somewhat cheap.



6) It reminds me of those HP laptop managers have at work..... I thought a Thinkpad should be special.

7) The firm keyboard is a bit too firm, and need to take sometimes to get use to.

8) The indicator on the outside of the screen does not fit perfectly, light is leaking out on the side.



Yet to try: fingerprint scanner

I've been playing around with ushare and GeeXboX for some time to setup a HTPC in my room.

I start with my old AMD Duron 950, with 256MB RAM, a DVD drive, small 6GB HDD, and a 14" LCD. I installed GeeXboX 1.1 on it, which is small and easy to install. Most important, it gets the job done.

Then, I installed ushare on my server. I setup a directory to store the UPnP media I want to share.



The end result is great, it just work. Now, I can watch my recorded TV directly from my server (which has a TV capture card).

The PC is a bit noisy because of the fan and missing a remote, but it will do for now. GeeXboX is not able to show filename in Chinese, and the file open interface a bit low tech. I hope it will get better in the future.

Ok, next step is to get a TV real-time streaming (via a 2nd capture card on my server) on this setup.

[update Oct 19, 2007]
Update to the progress
[/update]

From "My tagged link dump":

• PHP Shell
• Tor: anonymity online - A toolset for a wide range of organizations and people that want to improve their safety and security on the Internet
• Know your Enemy: Web Application Threats
  - Good info on how they attack and what to looks for
• Suhosin - An advanced protection system for PHP installations
• ModSecurity - Open Source Web Application Firewall - A Apache module to protect web application from attacks

I went to San Fransisco in May, to my pleasant surprise Air Canada finally has power outlet in the economy class. Now I can watch my own movie on my T60.

From "My tagged link dump":

• jQuery: The Write Less, Do More, JavaScript Library - a fast and concise JavaScript library that help add Ajax interactions to web pages
• Simplify Ajax development with jQuery
• Pownce - A way to send messages, files, links, and events to your friends.
• Perlbal - Perlbal is our Perl-based reverse proxy load balancer and web server.
  - used by Pownce
• Firebug - A web development suite on firfox
• Visual jQuery - Interactive JQuery documentation
• JavaScript Tutorial (EchoEcho.Com)
• The C10K problem - A article on configure operating systems and write code that scaled
• Devon IT - A company specializes in thin-client terminals and ultra-secure remote access solutions
• 惡搞黃世澤 (Who Let the Dogs Out ?)
  - hehehe

If it wasn't I total lost my Protege 5, it should have been returned to the dealer by now. I guess I can say a few words about my almost 4 years experience with this car.

It's a good car and relatively fun to drive. The handling is very precise, I think the low(er) profile tires and rim did quite a bit to improve the feel on the road.

The engine is reasonable powerful, for a 130hp, mileage is decently @ ~550ish km/tank.

The 4 speed automatic w/ sport mode is fun, but with a bit lag (which is expected unless you are shifting a DSG)

The most complain I found is rust.



I understand that I have the car idle for 6 months (starting in winter....), which seem to be really not good to my car even I carwash it before I park and leave town. I have a break rusted and need replace after I came back, but it didn't happen to my Golf..... maybe it's the 6 months idling.... But the body is starting to rust on various spots and the fact that I found how thin the paint+primer is make me believe it's not really a good car for Ontario since the salt here eat it alive.... I have seen 2002 one on the street with rusts on it and I was wondering what's the story... until I saw my rusted too. I found that the hatch was rusted badly under the plate holder, which some of the salt might have trap there, but again I do not have the same problem with my Golf.

All in all, it still a good car to have. But if you ask me if I want to have another one, my answer is no. It just my preference to try out different car when I get a new one.

Things been settled down for a bit now, I am getting used to F7.

A new bugs found:
- Nautilus memory leaks
- Insert CD no longer starts gnome-cd somehow, and the audio-cd icon struck and won't go away after eject. It was working before...
- CD copying didn't work on brasero, but it works on F6 on my server

Meanwhile, read an article about how to make GNOME better. There are some cool suggestions in there and hope it implements eventually.

From "My tagged link dump":

• 回歸十年，驀然回首 (Blog-You.com)