Liv & Paul’s Web Page

Trying to make the process of getting my photos off my camera and onto my websites as painless as possible. Four step process:

1. Extract photos from the Camera onto local file server and laptop
2. Tag and Select Photos for Displaying on Website
3. Upload selected Photos to the Website
4. Keep local photo tags synchronised with Website tags/ratings/comments

Part of Tagging process:

1. Install OpenCV on local server

Extract photos from Camera

• Create local directory based on date of oldest photo not processed before.
• Copy all new photos to this directory with unique name based on date & id.
• If server available copy photos to server directory.
• On server tag all files for ‘upload’, make ‘web’ & ‘thumb’ versions of all files and upload to website.

So we now have all files uploaded and available with no user input.

Tag and Select Photos for Displaying on Website

Wherever we decide to tag the photos we need to ensure all updates propagate to all versions of the files.

Assume to tag the files on the local server, as we can make use of local resources and install the relevant applications.

The plan: Build a volcano cake out of 24 homemade chocolate chip muffins, fresher the muffins the better so cooked the night before. No fancy lava, just lots of icing sugar, maybe Smarties in the Crater.

Need to make a base for the cake, probably add barbecue screwers to help the muffins keep the Volcano shape…

Trial run of Muffins went well, even with May’s help, used the Recipe from All Recipes.

Well it’s nearly 6 years since the vet warned us of George’s weight problem. On his last check up with the new vet he weighed in at over 7 kilograms, i.e. still hugely overweight. Since then we have taken measures to try and get him sorted out. As he doesn’t seem to be catching as much as he used to it can only be down to human supplied food.

Step 1 – Special Diet

We have started feeding George Hill’s Vet Essentials Neutered Cat Food. It is the one recommended by the vet and we are getting the Mature version from anywhere online that currently has it on offer (it’s quiet pricey!).

Step 2 – Canvas Neighbours

The neighbours are under strict orders not to feed George anything, although I suspect some are slipping. We have also fitted him with a collar with a bell and a little tag that says “I’m on a special diet please do not feed me” !

Step 3 – Exercise

For the last year or so George seems to have got even more lethargic spending nearly all day and night tucked up in his favourite spots snoozing. Only rousing himself for an hour or so before meal times. So whenever we are out in the garden we try and tempt him with a game of stick chase. Any number of toys (tunnels, teasers, electronic gadgets, catnip laced mice) bought over the years never really worked but a stringy bit of twig from the garden dragged round in a circle never fails to get a response.

Our 3 year old daughter May has taken quiet a shine to him of late and likes to ‘pet’ him. He tolerates the attention but she can get a bit much and he is forced to at least move around as he tries to keep her at a distance! This eventually escalates into a full scale chase round the garden, which certainly gives them both a workout.

Best value reliable IP phone I have found although it is now marketed as N300 by Siemens Sold at Amazon ($89.99). It has a number of ‘hidden’ setting detailed in the manual which I can never remember or easily find so I have noted them here for future reference:

• Changing the pause after line seizure

  MENU -> 7 -> 4 -> 9 -> 1 -> 6

  You can set the length of the pause inserted between pressing the talk key and sending the phone number.

• Changing the pause after the recall key

  MENU -> 7 -> 4 -> 9 -> 1 -> 1

  You can change the length of the pause if your PABX requires this (refer to the user guide for your PABX).

• Checking the base station MAC address

  MENU -> 7 -> 4 -> 9 -> 1 -> 5

  Depending on your network configuration, you may have to enter your base station MAC address in your router’s access control list, for example. You can check your base station MAC address.

• Activating/deactivating first ringer muting

  MENU -> 7 -> 4 -> 9 -> 1 -> 9

• Activating/deactivating SMS function

  MENU -> 7 -> 4 -> 9 -> 2 -> 6

  If you deactivate the SMS function, you cannot send or receive any SMS messages with your phone.
  The settings you have made for sending and receiving SMS messages (e.g. the numbers of the SMS centres) and the entries in the incoming and draft message lists are saved even after deactivation.

After a few weeks of prevaricating I managed to pick up the Zotac box from Amazon for £280 which seems like a good price for a PC with BluRay support. If I can bring myself to sell the 250Gb hard disk and Wifi mini PC card will bring the price down even further.

Since this item was only ‘As New’ condition I wanted to get it up and running as quick as possible so rather than do my usual Gentoo install I opted for the MythBuntu LiveCD. This installed very smoothly and allowed me to test out nearly all the features of the board quickly, just in case I needed to report a fault and return the item.

I have had the system up and running for some time now and it is the perfect Frontend for my requirements. Although it is actively cooled it sits in a wooden TV cabinet so I can’t here the fan at all.

As predicted I am only using 5Gb of the 250Gb hard disk so if I ever get the change to pick up a inexpensive Solid State Drive I will probably swap it out and sell on ebay. This would also improve the already pretty quick (compared to the VIA frontend) boot time.

This upgrade now paves the way to upgrade to Myth version 0.25, and the installation of a dual DVB-T2 receiver card in my server.

In a bid to save a bit of cash we now buy as much of our cat medicine online. Rather than taking him regularly to the vet for his worming tablets (a hefty consultation fee charged for the privilege) I now have to rugby tackle George to the ground and force a pill down his throat.

I’m currently having reasonable success with a ‘Pill Gun‘ a type of syringe that puts the pill at the back of George’s tongue so that he more readily swallows it rather than spitting it, soggy and unusable, back on the floor.

This is not a very enjoyable experience for either me or George so we are always looking for alternatives…


A very helpful Rosalind Manly posted this comment on another post:

Getting a pill down a cat – years of experience with owning cats but I have yet to have a cat that just takes the medication. It normally ends up with us both being stressed out. My current cat has asthma and the medication tastes really bad (foaming at the mouth before she swallows it – if I am lucky to get past the teeth!!!) Now after all these years I have found a solution. Greenies Feline Pill Pockets.

Just thought you would like to know. They do them for dogs too.

www.greenies.com

Banks don’t seem to publish how much their charges for cashing US dollar cheques, after much hand wringing I got the following out of the bank staff at Halifax:

Sterling value of the cheque is < £100 then the charge is £5.

Sterling value of the cheque is > £100 then the charge is the greater of 0.25% or £8 (up to a maximum of £80).

i.e.

£1 – £100, charge is £5
£100 – £3200, charge is £8
£3200 – £32000, charge is 0.25%
£32000 – …, charge is £80.

Following the first stage of the digital switchover at the Rowridge transmitter on the Isle of Wight we seem to have lost Mux C (Dave, Really, E4+1, etc.). The Mux was always marginal (signal) quality at the best of times, now there is no sign of it either on the TV or on the Myth system.

Done a bit of Googling and the following sites are useful for reference:

• Arial Supplier
• Rowridge Timetable
• Digital UK Postcode checker
• Rowridge Info at UK Free TV

By the looks of it may be worth installing a new TV aerial, either a Yagi 18A (on the roof) or a XB10 A.

Makita 18V LXT Drill Driver with 2 Li-Ion Batteries – Tools4Trade – £325

I’ve updated my wishlist for Christmas, feel free to buy something not on the list though! The wishlist is here

We have moved our internet provider & phone line from Virgin Media to BT Broadband. Thankfully it has been relatively painless, especially as it also knocks out the TV. Rough summary of what needed to be done:

• Disconnect old router.
• Connect the new router to the phone line.
• Wait for router to connect to the internet.
• Connect laptop to wireless network
• Browse to the router admin menu and change:
  • Admin password
  • Subnet Address & Router address
  • Wireless password & Wireless Network Name
• Connect up all wired connections
• In router admin change:
  • Set all node names and fixed IP addresses
  • Add port forwarding for 5060, 10000-15000, 80 & 443 to server
  • Configure DynDNS
• Any other wireless devices (Macbook2, Squeezebox) update Wireless config.

A summary of the recipes that are popular with the kids. Well popular with Henry at least, May only seems content with munching through a pork pie.:

• Macaroni Cheese [H & M]
• Carbonara – Jamie’s Courgette version [H & M]
• Spaghetti Carbonara [H & M]
• Noodles with Cream [H & M]




• Shepard’s Pie [H]
• Fish Pie [H]
• Porridge [H]
• Roast Dinner Vegetables [H]
• Cauliflower/Broccoli Cheese [H]
• Fish Finger’s and Veg [H]

Henry definitely prefers mild flavours, anything too flavoursome is ‘too spicy’, from tomatoes to bacon. Or anything that cannot be chewed to a paste (meat for example, stringy vegetables).

Probably going to do a clean install of our macbook, upgrading to Mac OS 10.6.3. Need to re-install:

• Onyx – Optimisation Utility
• Mythtv – Media Front end
• Firefox & Chrome – Browsers + Adblock (Plus V 1.3.6 – easy list
• X-Tools & X Windows
• OpenOffice
• VLC – Media Player
• Picasa / iPhoto – Photo Organisers
• BBC iPlayer Desktop

Pre-server upgrade, need to upgrade MythTV, just as I got used to svn, MythtTV has moved to github. Will work out how to do patches later (see Using Git guide, for now grab a snapshot tarball:
wget --no-check-certificate https://github.com/MythTV/mythtv/tarball/v0.24

Make a clean copy. Then on the server and all clients take a copy of the latest revision in /home/mythtv/XXXXX.

Shutdown all clients and the backend using /etc/init.d/mythbackend stop, stop any cron job that auto starts the backend.

On server backup myth database as described on the MythTV Wiki using mythconverg_backup.pl.

Create the new version of MythTV: Run the previous configure recorded in config.log, updated as appropriate. Run make.

Finally shutdown all clients and the backend again. Ensure any local modifications to myth are in ~/.mythtv (i.e. mysql.txt and any menu modifications).

Remove any copies of mysql.txt (/usr/local/share/myth/mysql.txt & /var/run/mythtv/.mythtv/mysql.txt).

Usually a good idea to run mythtv-setup, on macbook start X11, run:

Restart the server using /etc/init.d/mythbackend start. Check database is upgraded okay, check detected all tuners, listings, recordings and videos. Restart the client and check it is working (live TV, recordings and videos).

Always worried that we are bringing a lot of incorrect settings and unwanted orphan database guff. We could now create a new mythconverg database using the mc.sql file. Restart the backend pointing at the new database, this will populate with working defaults. Run mythtv-setup to add tuner cards, listings provider and channels. Run mythfilldatabase to get listings. Restart client and set up appropriate Video Playback Profile, check live TV works. Import videos, music and photos. Import old database tables – previously recorded programs (oldrecorded), current recordings (recorded, recordedprogram & recordedseek), and supporting tables: (recordedrating, recordedcredits, people, credits).

Once successful, install mythweb on the server:

Git Useful links

• Using git with MythTV
• GitHub
• Git Guide
• MythTV on GitHub

Getting MythTV from Github

First install and configure git:

Grab a copy of the repository and swap to the fixes branch:

There does not seem to be a simple method of tracking what revision you have in git? Proposed upgrade process:

• Take a copy of the installed source cp -r mythtv mythtv_installed
• Review changes since this build git short-log HEAD..???
• Get the latest version of the code git pull

Time to upgrade the server again, getting numerous failures, so need to re-install the whole system…

Quick Overview of Steps to Commission the Server:

1. Burn Gentoo 2011.0 Minimal CD, and boot server using it.
2. Partition Hard Disk

Device      Boot    Start         End      Blocks   Id  System      Mount
/dev/hda1   *           1           7       56196   83  Linux       [/boot]
/dev/hda2               8          70      506047+  82  Linux swap  [swap]
/dev/hda3              71         800     5863725   83  Linux       [/]
/dev/hda4             801        9729    71722192+   5  Extended              
/dev/hda5             801        1530     5863693+  83  Linux       [/mnt/portage]
/dev/hda6            1531        2260     5863693+  83  Linux       [/home]
/dev/hda7            2261        2869     4891761   83  Linux       [/mnt/root]
/dev/hda8            Remainder                                      [/shared/]    

3. Follow Gentoo Installation Instructions




Use backed up files from old installation as reference to various steps in the Gentoo install guide (/etc/conf.d/*, /etc/fstab, /etc/make.conf, and so on).

Ensure kernel has support for all filesystems ext2/3, xfs, nfs server. Ensure drivers built for all key components (use lspci -v to get key ones), correct CPU is chosen, hardware sensors and CPU powersaving.

Copy across all /etc/portage files before emerging the following packages.

Once complete will have the following services running:

• apache2
• asterisk
• dahdi
• lm_sensors
• local
• mysql
• mythbackend
• net.eth0
• netmount
• nfs
• nfsmount
• ntp-client
• ntpd
• sshd
• syslog-ng
• udev-postmount
• vixie-cron
• xinetd

Use /usr/lib/portage/world as a guide as to what packages to install.

Top level services that need to be installed:

• MythTV Backend
• Apache Web Server
• Asterisk PBX
• Squeezebox Server
• MySQL Database

Key components to support the above:

• LinuxTV V4L-DVB
• DAHDI

Order of Installation:

Utilties

• syslog-ng
• vixie-cron
• gentoolkit
• logrotate
• vim
• ntpd & ntp-client
• ssmtp

Hardware Control

lm_sensors – follow installation instructions and install appropriate modules
CPU Frequency control – Use kernel modules if possible, explore /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/

NFS Exports

Install and restore exports file from backup, TODO: Check for portmapper/rpcbind.

Mysql

1. Install the server: See the Gentoo Docs
   
   1. emerge –ask mysql
2. Update /etc/mysql/my.cnf based on previous tweaks (Mark updates with comments!)
3. Start the server:
   
   1. rc-update add mysql default
   2. /etc/init.d/mysql start
4. Import user privileges using this useful script:
   
   1. mygrants()
   2. {
   3.   mysql -B -N $@ -e "SELECT DISTINCT CONCAT(
   4.    'SHOW GRANTS FOR ''', user, '''@''', host, ''';'
   5.    ) AS query FROM mysql.user" | \
   6.   mysql $@ | \
   7.   sed 's/\(GRANT .*\)/\1;/;s/^\(Grants for .*\)/## \1 ##/;/##/{x;p;x;}'
   8. }
5. Import ‘working’ copy of various databases (asterisk, mail & mythconverg).

Asterisk

See the previous post on Asterisk upgrade.

Also install the latest phpagi

Install sox for increasing gain on voicemail.

Get British audio from Enicomms, put in /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/en_GB

Apache

Install as per Gentoo instructions, and restore backed up www files. (including .htaccess). TODO:

Download and install, and configure useful tools:

• net2ftp
• phpMyAdmin
• shell

Copy across bespoke tools:

• Asterisk Manager
• Share Research

Mythtv

Only really need backend support, but still need all the dependencies, so get portage to add them all. Ensure version we want is enabled in portage, update package.keywords

echo "media-tv/mythtv ~x86" >> package.keywords
emerge --onlydeps --ask mythtv
emerge --noreplace mythtv

Restore /root/.mythtv settings.

Also need xmltv for listings, with imdb support:

emerge --ask xmltv
tv_imdb --download --imdbdir /shared/imdb --prepStage all

Kernel Drivers if possible:

• Hauppauge WinTV-NOVA-T PCI – Ensure ‘CONFIG_VIDEO_CX88_DVB’ enabled.
• Twinhan Technology Co. Ltd VisionPlus DVB card – Ensure BT878 & BTTV enabled
• Hauppauge Nova-T USB Stick – Need DVB-USB-DIB0700 & Firmware dvb-usb-dib0700-1.20.fw

Copy backed up udev rules to ensure known adapter names. cp backups/etc/11-dvb.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/11-dvb.rules

Other Bits n Bobs

• ctorrent – For downloading torrents
• lftp – For website backups
• netkit-ftpd & xinetd – For FTP access
• dvd+rw-tools – For Backup to DVD
• git – For access to MythTV repo
• svn – For access to WordPress repo
• hdparm – For shutting down drives
• xfsutils – For xfs maintenance
• xpdf – To support research note download
• ethtool – In support of Wake-on-LAN

Weighing up the pros and cons of upgrading various components, try and capture what we have:

Motherboard –
CPU – AMD Athlon
PCI – Hauppauge Nova-T
PCI – Twinhan
PCI – Nvidia VGA
PCI – Digium Analogue Telephony Card with 1 FXO [5W max]
USB – Hauppauge Nova-T Stick
IDE – HDD
IDE – HDD
IDE – HDD
Fan – 120mm
Fan – 120mm
PSU –

New Server

ASUS P5ND2-SLI Power Consumption 150W(idle) – 220W(load) [1] Manual [pdf] – Manual states power range from 500W to 350W (system consumption) 17 to 25A on the 12V line.

Processor installed is a Pentium 4 with HT support [1], support EIST, max TDP of 85W.