Armswiper.co.uk

Aha!

I've just been reading an article on manipulating an iTunes library so that you can move it from one location to another.

I have a different problem but the information in the article helps me immensely. About 8 months ago my MythTV box died - I'd purchased a new HDD and it failed about 2 months later. Unfortunately, this meant that I lost my MP3 collection and I had no backups (backups are for whimps).

I was able to recover the files from my iPod using a bit of software called "Senuti". I had this download the files back to their original locations, based on the ID3 tags. Problem is though, this doesn't really work for compilation albums. I had the album structure of <Album Artist>/<Album Name>/<Tracks> so for compilation albums this "Album Artist" was "Various" - but there is no field of "Album Artist" in ID3, so for each artist on that album, it created it as a directory for that artist.

Hopefully, using the information in that article, I can write a quick script to identify the files that aren't in the right place, and move them where I would expect them to be. I should then be able to sync my iPods properly, and start to import some more of my new albums!

Oooh! Oooh! MythTV Remote Apps for iPhone

Need iPhone now!

http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/2008/07/23/mymote-iphone-app-for-mythtv-control-released/

Actually, I'm impressed with "MythTV for iPhone" and it's ability to stream to the device. Cool.

iPhone Tariffs

So, I'm now seriously considering getting an iPhone 3G. My trusty Nokia N80 is now coming up to two years old (end of next month), and it's started to crash when I try and send text messages sometimes.

Having reviewed a couple of things, I was unsure of what tariff to go on. Keen not to waste money, I guessed that if I went onto a high tariff, I wouldn't be able to change down - I was correct, you can't change down for 9 months after activation, and you can't drop more than one tariff level per month after that. The main question I had though was "Can I upgrade the tariff?". Lets imagine that I go on the �30 per month tariff, and realise that I'm using it too much and it would be cheaper for me to be on the �35 per month tariff. After what point can I change the tariff?

Well, having asked in my local O2 shop, I got an abrupt "9 months!" answer (in fact, annoyingly she answered before I'd even finished asking the question). Having clarified that I meant "change up" and not "change down", I was again met with the same abrupt "Still 9 months!" answer (again, before I'd finished asking my question). Helpful, to the point of rudeness.

Now, I wasn't sure about the answer to this, so I've checked online and the first answer I found online was a bit vague. Having search again I've now found the answer and the website states:

You can change your tariff to a higher tariff at any time.

Thank you. Clarity.

My biggest gripe with all this is the abruptness of the woman in the O2 shop, and here seemingly not willing to admit that she didn't know. I've got much more respect for somebody that can say "I'm sorry, I don't know/not sure about that. Can you wait a moment, and I can check that for you", rather than sticking to their guns and insisting on their first answer.

Mobile phone salesman actually really annoy me like this - very few people would be impressed by their somewhat aggressive sales pitches, and a lot would appreciate someone who is prepared to go out of their way to be correct, rather than someone that knows all the answers (or wants people to think they do). For those of you that know me already know that, in fact, I used to be a mobile phone salesman (albeit in a small independent shop, rather than a large chain), and I can actually remember someone coming back into our shop, having found a cheaper deal elsewhere because we were willing to spend time with him. If I were anybody else, I'd tell people to stick to independent shops (although, finding them now-a-days can be difficult), or to get basic facts from large retailers, do the rest of the research yourself, and then go back to the large retailers and do a "walk-in, purchase, get-out" manoeuvre.

Life Marches On!

Well, I don't think I've blogged for bloody ages, so here's what's going on with me recently!

A couple of weeks ago, I completed the London to Brighton Bike Ride, and raised over �300. Thank you to everyone that sponsored me
My boiler broke. Proper broke. I have a plumber in my flat right now replacing the bugger
I want a 3G iPhone. I think
At the weekend I competed in Richmond Amateur Regatta in the Novice Single Sculls. Fail.
I currently have a German guy living with me
My car continues to fall to pieces...
I bought one of these (I Want It IW500 iPod speaker dock) the other week with some left over birthday money. I'm thoroughly impressed. Just hope I can get a universal dock adapter for a 3G iPhone
I'm getting more and more annoyed with my current alarm clock. I still haven't found or built a good solution yet
I now want to build a lightweight MythTV front-end using a Pico-ITX system. Something like this would be ideal.
I keep having ideas on how to spend money, but I don't have any. See previous two items...

I'll endeavour to post more, especially since some people are soooo interested in my alarm clock antics.

Please Sponsor Me!

Yes, yes, it's that time again when I start harassing people about sponsoring me for the London to Brighton Bike Ride.

This year, Team Rentokil (although I think we are officially called "Rentokil Racers"), will be flying down from London to Brighton on the 15th June to raise money for the British Heart Foundation.

Fortunately this year, you can now donate online, which kind of helps me a bit as I don't need to chase anyone, and you can pay on card etc.

So, if you want to sponsor me, and raise some money for a bloody decent charity at the same time, please click below:

Massive Fail

I've just received an email from "Just Jack", seeing as I bought his album and downloaded free tracks from his website, it only seems fair. The email talks about a new record label "3M30", and launch party for a new single.

It's a free event, so I thought I might have a listen to the track, and if I like it head along to the launch party in London. Problem is, I can't get the track to start playing, and more importantly, despite putting a time in the email, they never put a date for the party in the email. I have *NO* idea when it is. Oh well....

Damn Damn Damn!

Damn it!

I'm currently writing an App that works under several different OS's, and I want to be able to create a GUI under Mac OS X.

The only problem is, the app is written using D and therefore I can quite easily call C functions, but not Objective-C functions, which means I can't use Cocoa.

Enter the D/Objective-C bridge. The only downside: it's GPL, not LGPL, meaning I can't use it and sell my product at the same time.

Damn the GPL!

Using GDC to compile a Universal Binary on PPC Mac OS X

I'm blogging this more as a reminder for myself, but seeing as I can't find this information anywhere else, I may as well log it for everyone to see. The same rules should apply for GCC and G++ as well, you just don't need to worry about the Phobos library part.

I'm working on a cross platform project using DigitalMars D, which means that I'm not using XCode to build it (instead I'm using an Ant build script) - however, I still have XCode 2.2 installed so that I can build Universal Binaries. To make things more complicated, I am compiling my code without linking, and then linking all the object files later.

So at compile time:

gdc <filename> -o <output-filename> <loads of other options that aren't important here> -arch ppc -arch i386

This will compile your .d file into your output file, with two architectures. You can test this using the "file" command in the command line:

file <output-filename>

This should report the different architectures you have built for.

At link time, things become more complicated. Instead of using the ordinary system root, you need to specify the correct SDK where Universal Binary libraries have been installed by XCode:

g++ <list of object files> -o <executable-name> -arch ppc -arch i386 -Wl,-syslibroot,/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk

This should link everything together nicely.... except you receive an error about not finding "gphobos".

If you have installed GDC properly (and a Universal Binary build at that), you should be able to find the file "/usr/lib/libgphobos.a". This is already compiled as a Universal Binary library, so don't panic about having to recompile (as I did), the problem is that "ld" cannot find the library in the SDK directory. So all you need to do is create a symlink in "/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk/usr/lib":

cd /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk/usr/lib ln -s /usr/lib/libgphobos.a libgphobos.a

If you try the G++ command again, it should link quite nicely.

Reading other related posts on the internet, it seems you can specify -arch ppc64 and -arch x86_64 to the compile and link statements. I also believe that the Phobos library is built for this already as well, however I'm saying that from memory so I may be wrong. I haven't tried those architectures (yet!), so your mileage may vary.

The Problem With Linux Volume Management

I think I'm going to start a campaign, against Linux Volume Management being used in desktop Linux installations.

I recently fell foul of it's charms, when I suffered a hard disk failure. One of the hard disks in my MythTV system failed, and so had to be replaced. However, I automatically assumed that the data that was available on the other hard disk would still be accessible, and so not everything was lost.

WRONG.

It turns out, that if one hard disk in a LVM configuration fails, then you cannot access the other hard disks. Unless of course, you enable the server grade mirroring system, which requires you to have another HDD where you can mirror the data to.

That, in my mind is completely stupid. How many desktop PCs are going to have that functionality available? Sure, it's fine for servers and the like, where extra money is willing spent on tiered backup systems, but for Mr Joe Bloggs with his cheap desktop, it's a no-no.

So, I've managed to get the hard disk replaced (it was still under warranty,) and I've managed to re-install MythDora, all the time fighting with the installation program to NOT use LVM (in the end, I had to let it create a partition layout, and then go back and delete it all and re-create it using ordinary partitions. I don't think that this is the fault of MythDora, I'm laying the blame firmly with the Fedora/RedHat EL crowd for this one.

Whatever you do, don't use LVM unless you know how to set it up properly, or you don't mind losing the contents of all the hard disks in your system....

My Utopian (Alarm Clock) Dream is One Step Closer!

So, the following project is not exactly what I want, but it's a step in the right direction. I just need to work out how to hack it to pieces to build what I want.

Internet Based, MP3 Streaming, Alarm Clock

I should have paid more attention in my Electronics A-Level.