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Sun, 16 Nov 2008
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The system upgrades took much, much longer than expected. If no one else has commented on it, it appears that MP3 functionality has disappeared from just about all of the leading Linux distributions. Avoiding the reasons why this is happening, it creates a number of issues which must be worked around. One loss is the ability to use LiquidSoap as a source for hold music in Asterisk (even though the capbility can be recovered, it doesn't yet "fit well" with Icecast or Asterisk inputs). At first, I attempted to use 64-bit Linux, with the objective of using LiquidSoap for a number of features. I had so much difficulty in getting Liq to work that I abandoned the 64-bit effort. Little did I know that it wouldn't work in 32-bit either. To make a long story short, time constraints have left me with a 32-bit box with a borked Liq (only plays OGGs) and a number of work-arounds to get a few functions (Asterisk, MythTV, etc.) working. I've even resorted to using SqueezeCenter as a hold music source in Asterisk. It's overkill, using way too many processing cycles to provide a single function, but it works. joat: 09:46:35 16 Nov 2008 |
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Thu, 06 Nov 2008
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I'll be offline for at least part of the weekend, updating OSs on a couple boxes (translation: recompiling a number of kernel modules and fighting packaged installs). Hopefully won't be for more than a day or so. joat: 06:07:51 6 Nov 2008 |
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Sun, 02 Nov 2008
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You've gotta love AOL. Ten plus years after the first infected email with a spoofed source address and their virus scanner still sends complaints back to the spoofed address (in this case: me!!), with instructions to contact my email administrator (again: me!). If 1 in 200 messages is infected, I'd guess that 1 in 400 is a return message (I receive a lot of these). Although the mail was sent with good intentions, it demonstrates a lack of understanding of infection vectors and is basically a waste of resources. For AOL, the message size was 4K. Because it was an error message, it was sent to my account and root on my mail server, so I get to delete this twice. This also ate up 8K of bandwidth. For me, it's not that bad. For AOL, it has to be monstrous (i.e., they're wasting their own money). If your anti-virus utility scans inbound email for viruses, please TURN OFF your auto-response feature. It actually compounds a number of problems (bandwidth, storage) rather than prompting the owner of an infected machine to fix his junk. joat: 08:44:50 2 Nov 2008 |
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Fri, 31 Oct 2008
Mon, 27 Oct 2008
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On Friday, I realized that hearing "Sweet Patootie" sung in a thick Southern accent, by a Larry the Cable Guy clone, is actually quite scary. I'm not so sure that I'm going back to that store... joat: 06:15:17 27 Oct 2008 |
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Sun, 19 Oct 2008
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joat: 10:52:57 19 Oct 2008 |
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Sat, 18 Oct 2008
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joat: 06:34:59 18 Oct 2008 |
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Mon, 13 Oct 2008
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Notes for sorting by numeric values in MySQL are in the wiki. joat: 16:17:13 13 Oct 2008 |
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Sat, 11 Oct 2008
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Offline (more or less) for a bit. Doing some heavy lifting on coding for a friend. joat: 23:26:58 11 Oct 2008 |
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Sat, 04 Oct 2008
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I think that I now have my MythTV/MVP configuration tweaked to the point where I can ditch the SageTV server. While SageTV still does have a couple bells and whistles that are nice-to-haves, I feel that SageTV has let their Linux side drop behind just a bit. Yes, they do have an HD interface, but I don't have a HD television yet. I may return to them at a later date. The SageTV server hasn't been able to adjust recording times for those channels that start a minute earlier than expected. Yes, I know that this is more of a function of their scheduling service. The television schedule was part of the commercial package that I bought. It is much, much more inaccurate than the scheduling service (which I also paid much less for) for MythTV. SageTV also loses to MythTV in the comparison of web interfaces for scheduling recordings of favorite shows. SageTV really doesn't have a "Favorites" feature unless you're willing to edit menu_items.js and then manually pick your shows. MythTV tracks your favorites, can automatically deconflict same-time recordings, and requires much fewer clicks to work around issues (if you need/want to take care of them manually). SageTV has an interface to Squeezebox that will only play locally on the server. MythTV's interface (Slimp3) actually plays remotely, through the MVP box. For remote access, you still need a client program for SageTV. For MythTV, the standard media players (Windows or Linux) will work via the web interface. The extra features that SageTV does have (the ability to play directly off of GoogleVideo or YouTube, a handful of useful plugins, etc.), I can live without. MythTV's shortcomings are minor. It isn't as hackable as SageTV (yes, the commercial product was easier to work with) and the community is a bit more friendly (I got a lot of abuse from the Myth developers for attempting to code something different from _their_ way. They actually were a bit proprietary about the code (they were angry that I was rewriting their code to do something they deemed useless)). You'd think that it'd be the other way around. I stuck with SageTV for a very long time (through 2 versions), well past the point where MythTV was a better choice for me. I think this was caused by the manual configuration requirements needed for MythTV. (I could just never find the time to play with it.) In any case, for those of you in the VPN (mostly those living in the house), the Sage interface is being taken down. The old rules of use for Sage now apply to Myth. For everybody else, notes in the wiki have been updated here and here. joat: 08:13:35 4 Oct 2008 |
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Mon, 22 Sep 2008
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If you generate a bunch of files with Cepstral, using default settings, you're probably going to be suprised when Asterisk doesn't play them. Even worse, sox will likely fail to recognize the file and refuse to transcode it. The problem is that Asterisk is expecting an 8 kHz wav while Cepstral generates 16 kHz wavs (for most of its voices). You're faced with regenerating the files or transcoding them. Depending on the number of files, one method or the other will be preferable. I've put both methods in the wiki. joat: 06:24:10 22 Sep 2008 |
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Sun, 21 Sep 2008
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Rec'd Cepstral for my birthday. Picked up the Allison, Damien, Shouty and Whispery voices. Had a bit of fun getting it to work. Works nicely though embedding SSML in the text is a bit wonky (i.e., some punctuation requires de-referencing). Notes are in the wiki. joat: 02:30:36 21 Sep 2008 |
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Sat, 13 Sep 2008
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With little or no fanfare (or I've been working way too hard to notice), ShmooCon 2009 has been scheduled for 6-8 Feb 2009. If things go as they have in the past, expect tickets to go on sale early in November. joat: 20:44:07 13 Sep 2008 |
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The more you work with *nix, the more you'll realize that it's the little things that will trip you up. Case in point: I tried installing OpenMeetings on my home system and continously get the "NetConnection.Call.Failed rtmpt://localhost:8088/openmeetings/hibernate" error. Hours of troubleshooting later, it turns out that I called the config file "hibernate.xml" vice the proper "hibernate.cfg.xml". I've updated the wiki notes to show the proper method. joat: 09:12:37 13 Sep 2008 |
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Fri, 05 Sep 2008
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Got a thumb drive full of valuable stuff but can never find anything on it because you can never remember what the filenames mean? Have multiple work machines that you just wish would have a common address book? Ever wish you could run a private wiki at work but you're not allowed? Ever hear of TiddlyWiki? A coworker showed me TW a couple days ago and I haven't put it down since. It's a tool that I've been needing for a very long time now. For those that don't know, it's a wiki written in JavaScript, meant to run from the local file system (e.g., hard disk or thumb drive). It looks like it'd make a good index tool for CDs or DVDs full of miscellaneous kruft. It looks like it'd make a good container for various beginner's guides also. I'll keep you posted. joat: 21:59:26 5 Sep 2008 |
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Mon, 01 Sep 2008
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There's discussion on the #savonet channel that an IAX interface for Liq is being developed. This could make things simpler. It's nothing that you can't already do by using Icecast as an intermediary service. However, I'm looking forward to experimenting with it. joat: 14:28:43 1 Sep 2008 |
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Sun, 31 Aug 2008
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Ended up having to troubleshoot an audio problem within Firefox tonight. The browser refused to play any audio and would lock up while visiting Flash-based sites. Fortunately, this was an easy fix. Notes are in the wiki. joat: 19:48:41 31 Aug 2008 |
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Thu, 28 Aug 2008
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Another thing that technology improves in our lives: the ability to pull new pranks. Tonight I ran across PhotoStamps from Stamps.com. Please note the statement that this is legitimate postage. My wife has various pictures of her and her sibling's childhoods. [insert evil laugh here] I imagine that my in-laws will be forming a lynch mob sometime around Christmas. joat: 21:19:51 28 Aug 2008 |
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Fri, 22 Aug 2008
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Why is it that finding info on streaming from a pipe to Ogg is easy, while the same info, involving MP3 streams, is a pain in the butt to track down? joat: 23:25:22 22 Aug 2008 |
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Sat, 16 Aug 2008
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Here is my list of links which describe how to add, block, and remove various items from Google's search engine. For now, the links are mostly from GoogleTutor. I've added them to the wiki to make them easier to find (for me) and as a precaution against GoogleTutor's disappearance. joat: 19:30:49 16 Aug 2008 |
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Fri, 15 Aug 2008
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Got to eat dinner with the team captain for Skewl of Root. When asked (at the conference) how they did it, he replied, "Cooperation, Dedication, and Overwhelming Technical Superiority!". Really want to know how they did it? Go back and take a look at their stats for the past 7 or 8 years. Notice how they almost always were in the top four finishers but most often had the suckiest "defense" stats? Care to guess what they fixed this year? As for the other teams, they didn't place first but they definitely didn't place last. Those that actually played had to beat out nearly 400 other entrant teams (we're talking thousands of people here!). They all busted their humps to get there. It is hilarious though, seeing team points graphed over time, with the Bossman narrating (similar to the effect of shifting into the next higher gear when the guy you're racing thinks you were at top end). Before you start buying torches and pitchforks, he was respectful of the other teams. Mebbe we can get him to digitize the commentary? (hint, hint!) joat: 06:07:36 15 Aug 2008 |
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Thu, 14 Aug 2008
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Here is my list of links which describe how to add, block, and remove various items from Google's search engine. For now, the links are mostly from GoogleTutor. I've added them to the wiki to make them easier to find (for me) and as a precaution against GoogleTutor's disappearance. joat: 07:03:35 14 Aug 2008 |
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Wed, 13 Aug 2008
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There's some advantage in being a tightwad. Your gadget money tends to go further. Friends know that I watch the local clearance bins like a hawk. I occasionally turn up some interesting stuff. Example 1: The local Walmart dumped their shelf of Linksys PAP2's for ten bucks a pop. I donated them to Sploitcast and they were (mostly) given away at this year's Shmoocon. Example 2: I just picked up an ATI HDTV video card for thirty bucks. I think the little OTA antenna may be missing but the price was low enough to be interesting. Now my only problem is that I'm running out of slots. joat: 07:15:54 13 Aug 2008 |
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Tue, 12 Aug 2008
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Hmmm... Gizmo's Backdoor Dialing feature looks interesting (i.e., free calls to land lines and mobile phones). I'm not in an area where this works but I'm willing to be some of my friends/family are. joat: 05:55:22 12 Aug 2008 |
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Sat, 09 Aug 2008
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I added the MythTV hack to play XMRadio streams today. There's a couple things that the MythTV wiki doesn't tell you: - you need to run xamp as the mythtv user at least once from the command line
- and you need to create the /home/mythtv/.xmonline folder (as the mythtv user) before you run it from the command line
Other than that, it's a pretty straight-forward install. My notes are here. joat: 22:35:37 9 Aug 2008 |
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Sun, 03 Aug 2008
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I've added notes for making 1-800 calls from Asterisk without having to pay for a phone line or ITSP: 1-800 Calls via Google411. joat: 09:46:31 3 Aug 2008 |
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Sat, 02 Aug 2008
Sun, 27 Jul 2008
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I've added notes for Openfire configuration to the wiki. Ben Perove has a 15-minute screencast on basick configuration. The one thing that he left out was that you have to enable management via /etc/asterisk/manager.conf. I also learned (the hard way) that if you use the embedded database (vice an external one) for Openfire, you'll run into issues with configuring the Asterisk-IM plugin. I'm having a bit of fun with Openfire (the server) and Spark (the IM client). The Asterisk-IM plugin announces inbound calls with pop-up windows using Spark. Openfire also has a gateway function for just about every IM available. This allows you to see when your friends are online (or chat with them), even in IRC, without having to start up a dedicated client for whatever individual service they might be using. joat: 10:52:45 27 Jul 2008 |
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Sat, 26 Jul 2008
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Got the install-from-scratch version (vice the VM version) of OpenMeetings up and running. One tip for other people messing with it, running OpenMeetings on the same box as your web browser doesn't work well (if at all). Run the server on a different machine. joat: 20:44:48 26 Jul 2008 |
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Thu, 24 Jul 2008
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I've got the auth server built with all of the modules/features enabled. The older ipkg installed nicely on my ancient WRT54G. The gateway works nicely (though I did lose some spouse points during the install) and seems to respect the pre-existing port-forwards. I don't see much of the previous notes changing all that much. I'll start tweaking them this weekend. One side project though, the documention. The current stuff is a bit sparse. joat: 17:14:53 24 Jul 2008 |
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Sat, 19 Jul 2008
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Dude! It's cool that you (you know who you are!) have a generally popular tech show on uStream. But don't forget to turn your rig off when you're done. We really don't wanna know that you wear too-small black speedo-like underwear and like to wander the house with a cereal bowl in the middle of the night! joat: 08:00:57 19 Jul 2008 |
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Fri, 18 Jul 2008
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Note to self (and anyone else who's troubleshooting similar): The following error is caused by a lack of the XAW library. error: X11/Intrinsic.h: No such file or directory The correction is to load the latest development version of libxaw. joat: 04:52:45 18 Jul 2008 |
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Wed, 16 Jul 2008
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I'll be updating the " setting up a captive portal" pages in the near future as a build another one from scratch (for the house). This weekend's project, from the looks of it, unless Sparks wants to mess with OpenVPN again. (Sparks?) joat: 06:23:22 16 Jul 2008 |
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Sun, 13 Jul 2008
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joat: 09:34:27 13 Jul 2008 |
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Sat, 12 Jul 2008
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Sparks and I have started working on getting OpenVPN up and running. The example for the simple point to point configuration is quite easy. However, that's where most of the howto's end. We're trying to get a point-to-multipoint configuration up and running but it's a bit more complicated. We should have it up and running shortly. joat: 00:01:59 12 Jul 2008 |
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Mon, 07 Jul 2008
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In the effort to make my digital life just a bit simpler, I'm considering abandoning yet another tool. This time it's SageTV. I've enjoyed using it for the last three years. It has quite a few features that the other DVR software packages don't. Plus an active support community. Plus being user-extensible. The problem is that the version that I've purchased is starting to have some serious issues, mostly by not playing well with various upgrades to my system. Having to maintain two versions of Java (the older one for SageTV) and a number of legacy libraries was a serious P.I.T.A. On top of that, the online sources never really worked all that well (which can be blamed mostly on the serious shortage of documentation for the Linux version). In any case, I'm considering moving away from SageTV. I really don't want to purchase the newest version. MythTV appears to have most of the features that I want and I'm willing to invest a few hours to get it up and running. I'll keep you posted. joat: 08:50:23 7 Jul 2008 |
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Sun, 06 Jul 2008
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I've got OpenMeetings installed to the point where that it is able to provide a video feed, from an XP box, to anyone else that connects. I'm having issues with the webcam on the Linux box (its the same make/model as the one on the XP box) so I'm thinking that either the webcam shouldn't be run on the server or there's something hardcoded which requires that clients be Windows based. I'm hoping that I find a howto or a troubleshooting page soon. That's the trouble with in-development code: documentation tends to be a bit sparse. Notes here. joat: 07:19:18 6 Jul 2008 |
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Sat, 05 Jul 2008
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Amongst a certain crowd (*ahem*), it's a popular practice to go "on retreat" where the geek completely unplugs from all communications for the length of their vacation. This allows the geek to "retreat" from the stress of their connected work and social lives. The problem is that stress conforms to many "laws" that physical objects do. In other words, the stress doesn't disappear just because you're not in it at the moment. Rather, the majority of it gets transferred to your coworkers and friends. In fact, it actually creates more stress from the inconvenience it creates on those friends and coworkers. Translation: Sparks! Dammit! Answer your phone! You're not going to Denver on Monday! joat: 21:00:00 5 Jul 2008 |
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Fri, 04 Jul 2008
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For anyone with a subscription to the feeds from the wiki, please bear with me. The installation process for OpenMeetings is a bit intricate and recording the process adds a large amount of time to the process (i.e., you'll be seeing a lot of minor updates). joat: 08:14:25 4 Jul 2008 |
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Hmm... down to 288 feeds, from 400+ earlier in the year. The hard part is saving the "to keep" stuff from the blogs that I no longer want to read (it is an election year after all...). joat: 08:12:15 4 Jul 2008 |
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Thu, 03 Jul 2008
Sat, 28 Jun 2008
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A bit of catch up... I've added the following notes to the wiki: . joat: 20:47:49 28 Jun 2008 |
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Sun, 22 Jun 2008
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Here's an easy one for SageTV users: if you somehow mung up your EPG so badly that it thinks that your last update was somewhere in the future and your next one really IS in the future, you can force an update by going to "Setup -> Setup Video Sources" and clicking on your video source (hint: it'll start with a number). Click on your source and then "Channel Setup". Then scroll down and click on one of the channels with the green ball on the left. (Hint: the green ball should go away.) Click on it again, so that the green ball comes back. Now go check your SageTV homepage (if you have the web interface installed). The datestamp for the "Last EPG Update" should be right about when you clicked on the channel button the second time. (Wiki notes here.) joat: 21:55:32 22 Jun 2008 |
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Fri, 20 Jun 2008
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joat: 00:47:27 20 Jun 2008 |
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Mon, 16 Jun 2008
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Spent the evening wandering around on TalkShoe, messing with various video phones, and installing software on a development platform. It's becoming apparent that even though X-Ten, the SIPPhone on the N800, Ekiga, and the Grandstream GXV-3000 can all "do video", how well it's done varies greatly. Case in point: a setup where the GXV-3000 calls an X-Ten softphone. The video from the GXV-3000 is quite nice, the X-Ten softphone displays it without any problems. It even scales well. The X-Ten softphone, however, has issues with its own video stream. On an 800 MHz machine, it has a lag which noticebly grows over time, until the application is running so slow that the program's buttons are unuseable until you hang up from the other end. (The video from the GXV-3000 keeps up during all this.) (Note: On a 1.2 Ghz dual core, it appears to keep up.) A N800-to-GXV call is a bit different. The N800 is able to keep up. It's just that the resolution of the camera on the N800 is just so low that the picture on the receiving end is comprised of giant pixels and overdriven colors. It's just too dang ugly to look at! My recommendation is to try and maintain end-point parity (use the same hardware or software on both ends). That way, it may be a bit ugly but you don't end up comparing mediocre (the soft phones) with the good (the hard phones). joat: 07:09:26 16 Jun 2008 |
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Mon, 09 Jun 2008
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Nothing gets my blood boiling quicker than someone forcing me to act on their own half-a$$ed research (yeah, I have one of those jobs). While my job has nothing to do with law enforcement or legal, IA and other people's work does play into it. What gets my hair standing on end is that certain organizations are trying to get laws passed to criminalize file sharing (vice being a civil matter), yet they can't do their own dang research properly. Be sure to click on the links for the authors. They have some other interesting projects going on. Note: the Slashdot article pointed only to the UW research paper, this is the associated web site. Free Printer741 now! joat: 05:44:17 9 Jun 2008 |
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Sat, 07 Jun 2008
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Nothing to see here. This post is just to claim this blog in a specific feed reader. Please ignore. joat: 09:26:26 7 Jun 2008 |
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Wed, 28 May 2008
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If anyone's interested in grabbing a copy of my feed subscriptions from Bloglines, grab 'em quick. I've decided that RSS feeds are just as insidious as television, if not more. When I started this blog, there weren't that many out there and there were definitely only a handful of security blogs. I spent a lot of time writing about topics that interested me and tried to stay out ahead (or away) from the gathering crowds. Nowadays, I don't write much and there aren't many topics not covered by a blog. Also, you don't have to travel too far to find any two security experts willing to contradict one another. As such, I am attempting to crawl out of the RSS sinkhole and go back to researching the more cutting edge stuff. I may blog about it, I may not. To help do this, I'm pulling the plug (unsubscribing) from all of the feeds that I read (there's over 300 of them), except for those of a few close friends and one or two high signal-to-noise feeds. For those of you that are totally immersed in RSS feeds or other forms of social network (yeah, you guys in the Twitter pool are included), the world is passing you by. Take a look around. The time that you used to spend coding or researching a topic has now disappeared into "reading time". You're probably spending the majority of your free time following the kruft growing in other peoples' lives or watching a couple security "experts" bicker. If you're skeptical of my intent or even just of my possible success, you can call it a blogger's mid-life crisis. Me, I'll call it an escape attempt. joat: 20:53:26 28 May 2008 |
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Tue, 27 May 2008
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"Product hate" tends to last longer that the reason for it. Case in point: I've asked a few Grandstream-related questions in some well-known forums and, instead of receiving legitimate answers (or even "don't know"), I've ended up on the receiving end of invective that is reminiscent of the old MS-v-Linux quasi-religious "purism". The company may have had some crappy products in the past, but I've used a number of their products recently and I'm quite happy with them. Admittedly, the previous firmwares did cause a number of unbearable issues but the current versions work quite nicely. I'd recommend taking another look at the Grandstream stuff if you're needing some cheap equipment. Some of the newer models have a few bells/whistles that you might be interested in, too. joat: 06:20:19 27 May 2008 |
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Sun, 25 May 2008
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Just about everyone that's tried to cause Asterisk to play hold music that's streamed from elsewhere has run into the "Stopped music on hold on Local/202@default-b77d,2" issue. Googling for it is no help whatsoever. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of people asking about this error. The answer is quite simple: if you're sucking off of a stream, comment out the line that starts with "directory". You only need the "mode" and "application" lines. How do I know this? Well, let's just say that I spent a few hours today, tracing just that very problem. joat: 21:29:13 25 May 2008 |
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Thu, 22 May 2008
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Got the chance to play with some GVX-3000's last night. Once I recovered from the problems induced by my own typo's, we had them working nicely. Left the test setup running for a friend's enjoyment this morning. There are a few additional features that I want to play with. joat: 07:33:32 22 May 2008 |
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Tue, 20 May 2008
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Many of us like to pop a bowl of popcorn, toss a DVD into a player, and watch a movie (esp. in an election year), say, like "National Treasure 2". Here's a hint to the Effin' marketing department: the previews shouldn't last longer than the d**n bowl of popcorn. (To borrow from the real SJ) Oh! And one more thing... Converting a crappy stop-motion animation to "high def" doesn't mean that I'll consider buying it, especially when it's placed somewhere around minute seven in the previews of other movies that I'd never watch/buy, with the fast forward feature disabled. It's enough to make you barf your popcorn back up! Yeah, I'm in a mood. What of it? joat: 19:28:19 20 May 2008 |
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Sun, 18 May 2008
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Arg! Why is it that online sites, that create audio files for use a podcasts, can't tag the MP3's properly, if at all? (*Ahem* TalkShoe) I've been tweaking my Savonet scripts, getting them to randomly play files if no one is using the jukebox function. Quite a few (not all) of the podcasts have no tags whatsoever and nothing shows up in the jukebox interface when they're played. Anyone care to join me in pestering various sites about their tagging capabilities? joat: 10:38:54 18 May 2008 |
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Sun, 11 May 2008
Fri, 09 May 2008
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Chris Soghoian's post, " IRS web site opens door to phishers" prompted me to visit the web site. In attempting to connect to the secure site, Firefox spit up the warning below. Note to any IRS webmaster: this is NOT how it's supposed to be done! 
joat: 05:53:33 9 May 2008 |
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Sat, 03 May 2008
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I've started a list of numbers to call. If you have any interesting SIP or IAX numbers, drop me an email or ask for an account on the wiki. joat: 23:45:11 3 May 2008 |
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I've switched languages for the conference manager. PHP proved to be just too brittle in dealing with self-referential recursive calls (it tended to pass a variable to the first call but would ignore the same value in the second and third calls). I'm now looking at switching to Perl or C based CGI scripts. So far, it appears to be going well. The Ajax piece is a bit more tolerant of the background code and the button functions implemented so far, work. I'm able to adjust volumes now! joat: 07:30:00 3 May 2008 |
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Mon, 28 Apr 2008
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This past week, I added a Gizmo interface to my Asterisk box. It's extremely simple to set up ( notes here). To add local inbound calls from POTS, I pointed my GrandCentral (GC) account at Gizmo. (They do that now.) This was the tricky and annoying part because the console showed that the call had been answered but the calling phone was still ringing. When I stuck a conference room into the mix and dialed into that with a third phone, I realized that GC was using an IVR on the receiving end (i.e., "Press 1 to accept the call, Press 2 to send it to voicemail, etc.). In other words, it requires human intervention (i.e., you must press 1 to accept a call). That's not to say that it can't be worked around. You can either have Asterisk push it immediately to a hard phone (if you expect to treat is as it was intended) or you can "trick" the IVR into delivering the call with the SendDTMF command (notes here). In either case, I now have a local inbound number for free! joat: 20:53:32 28 Apr 2008 |
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Sun, 27 Apr 2008
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In researching various VoIP services, came across the VoIP Resource Guide. It's a very large link page with a number of pointers to various VoIP related pages (includes hardware, software, politics, etc.). joat: 12:17:22 27 Apr 2008 |
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Sat, 26 Apr 2008
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Either Alec Saunders is completely ignorant about his former employer or he's playing at being a troll. His post entitled " Microsoft's Contribution Was TCP/IP" lacks a serious amount of "clue". Actually, the TCP/IP stack was "borrowed" and then implemented poorly. I think that by using the phrase "by ensuring a relatively bug-free implementation of IP", it's a indication that Alec: - wasn't there,
- was in marketing (and therefore ignored anything the programmers said), or
- is just a clueless journalist
A little research shows that he was actually a director of marketing, meaning that (at best) he knew the features but not the bugs. Windows 95 had a secure TCP/IP stack?! Buahahahaha....[**gasp**].hahahaha.... For some reason, Alec has no memory of the horrendous amount of crap and pain we (as network operators) went through in the late 90's and early 00's. Could there have been that much separation between the various MS departments at the time? joat: 09:34:11 26 Apr 2008 |
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Mon, 21 Apr 2008
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I'm finding out the hard way that the statement that you don't need to prepend Perl routines with an ampersand only remains true if you don't repeatedly nest sub-routines. I wonder why this is.... joat: 06:12:30 21 Apr 2008 |
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Sun, 20 Apr 2008
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