I’ve setup a Linux machine to pipe audio into my house. I use Amarok to listen to mp3’s and internet radio. Recently I’ve added an RF remote and and the capability to listen to Sirius radio. A few people have asked how I did it, so I thought it would be worth a blog post.

I found and app called Sipie. Sipie is a simple little Linux application to listen to listen to Sirius radio. I decided on using the ATI remote because it’s an RF remote, I can use it in any room in the house. Lirc the program that delivers commands from my remote to Amarok (and Sipie).

The truth is that neither Amarok nor Sipie have native LIRC support But I worked around this by using irexec to control Sipie. And I used dcop to control Amarok. Thankfully Amarok does have a very complete dcom interface, but I could find very little useful documentation on it.

Hacking Sipie

Sipie is just a small python program. I modified xSipie so that it would take a channel number as a command line argument. I modified Sipie version 1171984823. Newer versions of Sipie have this feature built-in; no modifications should be required.
Installing LIRC:

There are a number of howtos there. I followed this one.

After you have lirc working (not always an easy task). You’ll need to assigned the remote buttons to do different tasks. Below is my .lircrc file. It includes my mappings for Sirius radio and for amarok.

# lircrc for ati remote wonder

# Command bindings

begin
    button = POWER
    prog = irexec
    repeat = 0
    config = amarok &
end

#watch web cam
begin
     button = tv
     prog = irexec
     repeat = 0
     config = killSipie; mplayer -fs rtsp://user:pass@192.168.15.73/mpeg4/media.amp &
end

begin
     button = dvd
     prog = irexec
     repeat = 0
     config = mplayer dvd://
end

begin
     button = web
     prog = irexec
     repeat = 0
     config = firefox
end

begin
    button = a
    prog = irexec
    repeat = 0
    config = xmms
end

begin
 prog = irexec
 button = 9
 repeat = 0
 config = killSipie; sipie thepulse &
end

begin
 prog = irexec
 button = 8
 repeat = 0
 config = killSipie; sipie newcountry &
end

begin
 prog = irexec
 button = 7
 repeat = 0
 config = killSipie; sipie bbcradio1 &
end

begin
 prog = irexec
 button = 6
 repeat = 0
 config = killSipie; sipie jazzcafe &
end

begin
 prog = irexec
 button = 5
 repeat = 0
 config = killSipie; sipie cnn &
end

begin
 prog = irexec
 button = 4
 repeat = 0
 config = killSipie; sipie thebeat &
end

begin
 prog = irexec
 button = 3
 repeat = 0
 config = killSipie; sipie altnation &
end

begin
 prog = irexec
 button = 2
 repeat = 0
 config = killSipie; sipie hotjams &
end

begin
 prog = irexec
 button = 1
 repeat = 0
 config = killSipie; sipie siriushits1 &
end

begin
 prog = irexec
 button = 0
 repeat = 0
 config = killSipie; sipie 90salternative &
end

# Program Specific
#

begin
 prog = irexec
 button = FFWD
 repeat = 3
 config = dcop amarok player next
end

begin
 prog = irexec
 button = REW
 repeat = 3
 config = dcop amarok player prev
end

begin
 prog = irexec
 button = PLAY
 config = dcop amarok player play
end

begin
 prog = irexec
 button = PAUSE
 config = dcop amarok player playPause
end

begin
 prog = irexec
 button = STOP
 config = dcop amarok player stop
end

begin
 prog = irexec
 button = VOL_UP
 repeat = 2
 config = dcop amarok player volumeUp
end

begin
 prog = irexec
 button = VOL_DOWN
 repeat = 2
 config = dcop amarok player volumeDown
end

begin
 prog = irexec
 button = MUTE
 config = dcop amarok player mute
end

begin
 prog = irexec
 button = LIST
 config = dcop amarok player showOSD
end

begin
   prog = irexec
   button = TIMER
   repeat = 0
   config = killSipie
end

begin
   prog = irxevent
   button = OK
   repeat = 3
   config = Key Return CurrentWindow
end

begin
    prog = irxevent
    button = UP
    repeat = 3
    config = Key Up CurrentWindow
end

begin
 prog = irxevent
 button = DOWN
 repeat = 3
 config = Key Down CurrentWindow
end

begin
 prog = irxevent
 button = LEFT
 repeat = 3
 config = Key Left CurrentWindow
end

begin
 prog = irxevent
 button = RIGHT
 repeat = 3
 config = Key Right CurrentWindow
end

#begin
#    button = power
#    prog = xmms
#    config = quit
#end

begin
     button = vol-up
     prog = mplayer
     config = volume 1
     repeat = 1
end

begin
    button = vol-down
    prog = mplayer
    config = volume -1
    repeat = 1
end

begin
    button = pause
    prog = mplayer
    config = pause
end

begin
   button = play
   prog = mplayer
   config = play
end

begin
   button = stop
   prog = mplayer
   config = stop
end

In the above script you may have saw that I was calling a script called killSipie.

Below is the contents of that script:

$cat /usr/bin/killSipie
#!/bin/sh
kilall mplayer
kill $(ps -ef | grep “/usrbin/sipie” | head -n1 | awk ‘{ print$2 }’)

Here is my ~/.Xmdmapfile

$cat .Xmodmap
keycode 179 = XF86AudioPlay
keycode 232 = XF86AudioStop
keycode 152 = XF86AudioPrev
keycode 233 = XF86AudioNext
keycode 176 = XF86AudioRaiseVolume
keycode 174 = XF86AudioLowerVolume
keycode 160 = XF86AudioMute
keycode 110 = XF86AudioPause

And lastly, I wrote a script to load my remote settings start up:

$ cat ~/remoteStartup.sh

#!/bin/sh
xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap

irxevent &
irexec ~/.lircrc &

Good maps are always interesting.

What bugs me about Sun is its marketing department. Does every 3rd party application need the Java logo upon startup?

If you write an applet, Sun’s marketing department is there to make sure there’s an animated Java Logo taxing the already strained CPU while your applet loads.

If you write a Java Web Start application, Sun’s marketing department is there to make sure the users see a big splash screen proclaim the use of Java in the application.

And lets not forget that all important Java tray icon that needs to be visible whenever the JVM is loaded.

Want to use an application on your phone? Well, hold everything while Sun’s marketing department throws up a splash screen to inform you that, yes indeed this application uses Java.

And its a good thing they tell you its written in Java too. Just imagine the catastrophe that would follow if the user was somehow unaware that she was using application written in Java.

I believe this is why so many people have negative attitudes towards Java.  In the users minds, every poorly written Java application on the web is connect to the Java brand.   And there are an awfully lot of poorly written applications out there.  Of course this isn’t a technical failing of Java, these apps are just badly written.

Just imagine it every time a C++ application (or an ActiveX control) misbehaved you were greeted by an MSVC splash screen.  If this were the case there would probably be more resentment misdirected at MSVC (and not against the poorly written application that crashed).

Then there’s Java version number mess. I been using Java since version 1.0. It’s been quite a ride.

Sun: Releasing Java 1.1

Sun: Releasing Java 1.2

Sun: No, wait! Java 1.2 is now known as Java.NEXT,

User: ok

Sun: Strike that, it is not Java.Next. We’ll call it Java 2.0

User: sure, whatever. I like bigger numbers too.

Sun: New version of Java is ready.

User: So the next version is Java 2.1 or Java 3.0 right?

Sun: Nope. The next version of Java is called Java 1.3

User: That’s odd. Did I pass through a time warp? I see the term J3EE all over the web. Did J2EE become J3EE?

Sun: Nope, we call that J2EE version 1.3. They are just confused.

User: fine

Sun: Releasing Java 1.4

User: So this is J2EE 1.4. Is Java 1.5 ready?

Sun: Silly user. It’s not Java 1.5. It’s called Java 5.0

User: What happened to versions 3.0 and 4.0? Did I just leap into the distant future?

Sun: <Crickets>

Users: ok, so its J2EE version 5.0? right?

Sun: Nope, its J5EE this time. But sometimes we call it J2EE 5 too. And please also call it “Tiger”

User: Ok, J2EE 5.0 Tiger.

Sun: Guess what? We have a new Java version. Want to guess the version number?

User: Let me guess…. Java J2.1EE 1.6 Tutrle GTS? Did I get close?

And then there was Java Desktop System. Which is basically a re-branded version of Gnome. It really didn’t have a whole lot to do with Java.

Don’t even get me started on the marketing that lead to the name JavaScript. Java vs JavaScript is the source of all sorts of confusion for many users.

The latest marketing move is that Sun is changing is stock symbol from Sunw to Java. This will probably make the term Java even more ambiguous. Look what happened with the .Net name. The term Dot Net was used in so many context it became to mean anything and everything relating to Microsoft technologies. The .Net name was use to describe many different products and services. Ex: Do I really need to be using .Net to use passport? To this day it still confounds many in the industry, the media and the public at large. I predict that Sun is about to follow that same road. All of Sun’s products may some day bear the name Java.

<insert Java splash screen here>

http://www.virustotal.com

I just finished rendering a video project I been working on in Cinerella. Rendering took slightly over 24 hours to complete. (Digital video editing isn’t exactly fast on any hardware)

Then to compare I decided to render the video again, but this time with atime disabled.

I added “noatime” to my /etc/fstab

/dev/hda1 UUID=XXX-XXX-XXX / ext3 defaults,noatime,data=writeback,errors=remount-ro 0 1

The next rendering took 22 hours. So in my case disabling atime gave me about a 9% speed increase. From now on I’ll be disabling atime on all my systems.

Now I finally understand why my VPN (and tunnels in general) are so unstable. TCP’s retransmission algorithm wasn’t designed to work in a tunnel. This link explains it far better than I can: Why TCP Over TCP Is A Bad Idea

• SSH from a Windows host to Linux host
• Forwarding Linux X11 display to Windows Xserver
• Cygwin on Windows
• RDP from Linux to Windows
• Wine running Win32 apps on Linux host
• Linux VM on a Windows Host
• Windows VM on a Linux Host
• synergy (very slick)
• KVMs

None of these solutions are prefect. I’m always in search of better Linux-Windows desktop integration. I haven’t found the perfect solution yet, but did learn a new trick the other day that gets me a little closer. Using seamlessrdp I am able to login to remote Windows machines over RDP and have applications from my Windows box to my Linux box share the same desktop. See the photo below.

There are a number of good seamlessrdp howtos out there. But be aware that some of them direct you to disable Windows passwords, or store them in shell scripts (and possibly in .bash_history files).

It is probably a better to do something like this instead…

rdesktop -x l -rsound -A -s "c:\seamlessrdp\seamlessrdpshell.exe C:\Windows\explorer.exe" 192.168.1.9 -u username -p `zenity --entry --hide-text --text "Enter Windows Password:"`

I’ve set up my system to prompt me for my password using Zenity. That way no password are stored in shell scripts.

wget http://user:pass@192.168.31.243/axis-cgi/jpg/image.cgi?resolution=640x480 -O /home/user1/timeLapse/`date +%s`.jpg

I put the baby to bed and let cron do all the hard work. The next morning coverter the images into a video with the following command:

mencoder "mf://*.jpg" -mf fps=10 -o test.avi -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=msmpeg4v2:vbitrate=800

The resulting video is interesting to watch. He moves small bits at a time, mostly by moving his arms.

What I find interesting is that this issue has been known for sometime. I can never predict what will be news worthy. It’s all about how you present the issue. Several people at Microsoft were talking about this over two years ago. Previous discussion on the issue never used the “V word”. It wasn’t until Chris Soghoian used the word “vulnerability” (rightly so) that this issue got the attention it probably should have received years ago.

Users (and sometimes developers) don’t understand DNS spoofing, trust, man-in-the-middle, certificates, BGP, AS Numbers, etc. But people do understand the concept of a vulnerability.

Think nerf guns are for kids? A mirco-dart to the neck from this gun might change your mind. A little of this mod and a little of that mod and some paint, and you have one nice weapon.