pyTivo - Media Server for the Tivo

Its been nearly a decade since I started using Tivo, and it has been one of the few technology appliances that has been popular with my wife.

When I upgraded my trio of DirecTivo players to Tivo HD a few years back, I briefly used the Tivo Desktop, but wasn't happy with the limited video format support for transferring videos. I had upgraded to the Desktop Plus but found that pyTivo was a much more flexible alternative.

A few years before the Tivo HD arrived I was tired of my kids being rough with the DVDs so I had encoded our entire DVD library and stored in on my NAS (now using a Synology DS508 with 7TB of disk space) and was using a dedicated HTPC to drive the videos on the TV the kids watched. Witht he Tivo HD paired up with pyTivo I ditched the HTPC altogether.

With pyTivo allo of the Tivos around the housefull access to my entire Video Library.

Check it out it works on Windows, Linux and Mac

I'm currently using:

• wmcbrine's Tivo Fork
• rdian06's latest ffmpeg

SketchUp 7

I used SketchUp originally back in 2003 when planning a garage addition.

The addition had to objectives:

1. A bump-out so I'd be able to park my F150 Crew Cab in the garage which was built at the turn of the century and sized for Model T's
2. A shed enclosure so the kids would have a place to park their bikes.

pics of the plans and construction here: http://picasaweb.google.com/bob.willmot/Garage#

Google acquired SketchUp in 2006 and has made numerous additions since then.

I just stated playing with the latest 7.1 version and there are quite a few new features. Check it out if you are in the market for building 3D models or architectural plans:

http://sketchup.google.com/

All Bobby wants for Christmas is his 4 Front Teeth

Well Bobby has lost his 4th tooth last night -- and he declared that "All I want for Christmas is my 4 Front Teeth!"

For all the pics visit: http://picasaweb.google.com/bob.willmot/Teeth#

kmttg - Tivo transfer tool

I have been a Tivo user and hacker since 2000. I have done hard drive upgrades on all of them through the years and on the DirectTV models I used to have, had added TurboCache network cards to make them network connected (this was before the network connectivity was added in the Series 2 Tivos).

Getting content on and off the Tivo has been the primary interest of my hacking (other than expanding capacity) and tools to assist in this have improved significantly over the years.

One tool I've used for some time which is great at getting content off the tivos is kmttg

http://code.google.com/p/kmttg/

This program was originally written in perl, but the current incarnation was re-written in Java. It includes the following features:

• View all listings on all your networked TiVos with full details of recording size and bitrates
• Can automatically pull files from all networked TiVos as background service
• Encode transferred shows to different formats
• Integration with commercial detection and cutting tools
• Close integration with pyTivo - can generate metadata files and push files automatically back to TiVos.
• Cross Platform: runs on Windows, Mac or Linux
• Open Source
  

If you have a Tivo you have to check it out.

Garage Squirrel Hole Repair

A squirrel decided he wanted to get into the garage and chewed through the pine siding to get in.

A top-notch work crew (which consisted of 3 kids and dog) made short work of this problem with some wood, screws and patch made from body filler.


For all the photos -- check out the Picasa Album:

http://picasaweb.google.com/bob.willmot/GarageSquirrelHoleRepair#


The last time we used body filler on the garage was back in 2004 when I had removed the hardware when installing the garage door openers.

Pics from that project here: http://picasaweb.google.com/bob.willmot/GarageDoorOpeners#

PC Teardown

My son performed his first PC teardown today.

This one was a 3.06 GHz pentium that was manufactured before he was!

For full pics see:

http://picasaweb.google.com/bob.willmot/PCTeardown#

Cake Boss

We used to live in Hoboken, NJ ten years ago.

Yesterday was our 11th Wedding anniversary and were feeling nostalgic, so we stopped by Hoboken today.

We got bagels at our favorite bagel shop: Hoboken Hot Bagels on Washington and 7th street, and then stopped at Carlos Bakery -- the home of the TLC show "Cake Boss"


My wife Mary Beth is the school nurse were Buddy's niece and nephew go to school, and the kids got their picture taken with Buddy in the Bakery today.

Digital Camera Kit

Back in the days of film photography I do fondly recall making a pinhole camera.

Here is the digital equivalent of a pinhole camera kit:

http://www.bigshotcamera.org/

Sounds like a great project that my kids will love. Just hope they don't start tearing-down my Nikon to see how it works.

Google Voice

I've been using Google Voice for a few weeks now and I am really impressed.

From my perspective the most useful features are:

1. Ringing multiple phones at once
2. SMS transcriptions of voice messages
3. Online access to calls, transcriptions of calls, SMS history
   
4. Routing of calls based on caller, time of day.
   
5. Call Screening / Listening in on calls
6. Cheap International Calls

Quite impressive -- Google continues to impress me.

ZWave Test Bench

I'm planning to upgrade my house with Zwave Home automation

I decided to get the hardware and software verified and ready to go before I start replacing all the wall switches.

So I threw together a test bench with a light and a Intermatic CA600 Dimmer


As expected no problems with the incandescent bulbs tested so far -- but need to test the different versions of CFL that I have in certain places in the house.

Linux Alarm Clock

Well its a whole lot more than an Linux-based alarm clock...

but I just replaced my alarm clock with a Squeezebox Radio

This one has color LCD Screen that wasn't part of the Squeezebox Boom that I already had in the kitchen.

The ability to see album art is a really nice touch!

Squeezebox Server on Synology

I installed the Squeezebox Server on my Synology NAS.

I continue to be impressed with how well the Synology NAS runs services like the perl & mySql based Squeezebox server.

I do have my eye on the Squeezebox Radio ...

I think it may be time for an upgrade to my bedroom alarm clock / radio / CD player

Synology Mail Server

I setup an SMTP mail server on my 7.5TB Synology DS508 NAS

This server (coupled with a RoundCube web reader) can receive forwarded email from gmail, so you can still read gmail content when behind a firewall where gmail is blocked.

Ubuntu 9.1 - Squeezebox Server

I upgraded to Ubuntu 9.1 tonight -- but had to do some tweaking to get Squeezebox Server running for my Squeezebox Boom

Squeezebox Server has a dependency on MySQL 5.0 but Ubuntu 9.10 upgrades to MySQL 5.1.

First I extracted the package:

dpkg -e squeezeboxserver_7.4.1_all.deb

Then edited the control file:

cd DEBIAN
vi control

Then replaced the MySql 5.0 dependency by replacing the "Depends:" line and saved file:

Depends: perl (>= 5.8.8), mysql-server-5.1 | mysql-server-5.1, libmysqlclient14-dev | libmysqlclient15-dev, mysql-client-4.1 | mysql-client-5.1, adduser

Rebuilt the changes into deb file:

tar -czvf ../control.tar.gz *
cd ..
ar r squeezeboxserver_7.4.1_all.deb control.tar.gz

And finally installed the new package:

sudo dpkg -i squeezeboxserver_7.4.1_all.deb