A few weeks ago I closed the lid on my MBP to do some other work, but when I came back to it, I got the password authentication screen and the machine stalled. I left it be for a few minutes, but clearly something was wrong after 20 minutes. Forcing a shutdown, the machine booted to the grey loading screen and no further. That told me something was definitely wrong, so I went to the MacRumors forums and posted a message about the Blank Screen of Death that has afflicted many other MBP owners. During this time I also removed the HDD from the MBP and installed it into an enclosure for use with another MacBook. When it didn’t mount, I started to get more nervous, and the obvious beeping of the drive did not help. So I admitted defeat and prepared to purchase another drive the next day, which I did.

After taking the drive into a data recovery service just for an evaluation, it turns out the drive had seized, and a repair was likely to return all my data, but at the minimum charge of $500. Since I had already rebuilt the website data I had lost and most of my applications were on my 2 week old backup, I’m going to take a pass on the repair.

This entire event has taught me a number of things that I’ll outline here.

1. Hard drive failures are inevitable
   It really isn’t a case of if, but when. Especially in a laptop, where the fragile spinning components are tossed and turned and operated at weird angles. Be prepared.
2. Backup regularly
   Buy an external drive, and either use Time Machine or other cloning software to create regular backups. I lost all of 1 website, most of another and a few photos from a trip. The websites I’ve since rebuilt, but if the other data had been mission critical, I could have been in big trouble.
3. Check your backups
   I use Carbon Copy Cloner to build images of the drive and store those on my Ubuntu file server. In the process of retrieving some after replacing the drive, the image would not eject, then would not mount due to a corrupt file system. It worked out after rebooting, but was a cause for concern. Be sure to check your backups often to make sure they are updated as expected.
4. Double check drive reliability
   I probably have more than 8 hard drives in my possession right now, and most are Western Digital. Of the drives I’ve had fail, all are of the 2.5″ variety and only 1 is WD. I believe I will be purchasing WD drives for the near future (my replacement drive is a 320GB Caviar Black). Before buying a new hard drive, especially for laptops, research reliability data for various manufacturers to see if there is more satisfaction with particular vendors.
5. Data recovery is expensive
   My $500 is the starting price of recovery, which I received because the firm believed I was a student. Many recoveries reach far higher, due exclusively to the manner in which data is recovered. If the repair is straightforward, the cost is far lower than if it requires extensive reconstruction. If your hard drive ever dies and you need recovery, prepare the platinum card because regardless of data volume, you’ll be paying a lot.
6. Consider drive upgrades regularly
   You have no way of knowing which drive will stop after 3 years or 8, but after this latest drive death, I will be upgrading storage every 2 years or so. Once SSDs are more cost effective, I’ll move to those (which brings their own problems) but I think the key to reliable storage is fresh media.

Data loss is no fun for anyone, but with the right safety measures in place, you can come back from the loss with minimal downtime and lost material.

MythTV is one of the premier software packages to come out of the open-source movement. It has been developed by hundreds of individuals who work in their free time to generate software that useful to an even greater number of people. Built for the Linux platform, it is very robust and feature filled. This power comes at a price, however, and MythTV is famous for being stubborn to install and maintain. Originally I wanted to write a blog post about how I installed a TV tuner card and conquered MythTV to create an amazing home server package, but instead I need help.

After adding a Hauppauge HVR-1600 to a PCI port in my mid-tower, I installed the drivers and firmware and set about installing MythTV. This has proven impossible because I cannot run the setup program. As shown by the image at the top, whenever I run mythtv-setup through an Xserver session on my MacBook Pro, no video is output and the interface becomes unbearably slow. I’ve consulted with many different forums and no one has been able to offer advice, so now I want to get help from the internet at large. Has anyone see this while installing MythTV and knows how to solve it?

Here’s my hardware setup to clarify things.

• OS Ubuntu 9.04 CLI
• TV Tuner Hauppauge HVR-1600
• Network Gigabit
• Remote terminal OS Mac OS X 10.6.4
• Remote terminal hardware MacBook Pro 13″ Dec 2009 GeForce 9400m

It was an interesting ceremony, to say the least, and is one that I will remember for a long time. It was a very nice way to both prepare for a future career and to commemorate the last 4 years of studying. Officially, in June I will receive my degree in Mechanical Engineering, and after registering with Professional Engineers of Ontario, I will be an EIT, or engineer in training. This means that I can begin to work under a fully licensed Professional Engineer and collect experience that is required to receive P.Eng certification.

Since jobs don’t come overnight, and I’d like to enjoy the summer a little bit, right now I’m not focusing that intently on my full-time job search. Instead, I’m using some of the skills I picked up during high school and university related to website development. Right now I’ve joined a site called oDesk.com that connects people looking for results with providers of services. So far I’ve been able to help a few people around the world by building some WordPress plugins to improve their site’s functionality. These include one to display popular tags in the last few posts and another that gives users the ability to vote on photos displayed on posts. Additionally, I’m also working on a number of other websites for friends and family. I currently have about 4 projects of various sizes and complexities ongoing, and most use WordPress as a backend so I’m getting pretty comfortable creating themes, plugins, administration panel pages and interacting with the WP database. Check out www.openticket.ca for the latest project to start up.

More related to engineering, I’m also spending time contributing to our university’s Formula SAE team. As a member of the drivetrain team, I did some work looking at the best differential, sprocket, half shaft and spindle combination to get the most power out of our Yamaha R6 engine. I even got to do some design work, using SolidWorks to create a 3D model of a specific part, test it with the simulation software and then have it sent out to be machined on a CNC mill. It’s very cool to see something built inside a computer become a real part.

In May, the team took the car to Michigan International Speedway where we participated in Formula SAE Michigan 2010, a competition between universities all over the world to see who can design, build and market the more cost effective and highest performing race car. Unfortunately the team ran into some scheduling issues during the school year, when students — rightly so — focused on school work rather than building. Since this is the first of 3 competitions during the summer (I’m hoping to get to California and England later), we took what was built on the car and learned as much as possible. It was very interesting to see what the other teams had done with their time and budgets.

With all that in mind, it’s easy to see why my last post here was a few months ago. I hope to write more in the coming weeks, as I will hopefully have some time to work on projects that can be shared. Engineering is a challenging field of study, but it is very rewarding in both education and contribution to society. Finishing my program and learning more outside of school has helped me realize that I’m in the right field and that the sky isn’t even the limit.

I looked at rsync and curlftpfs, but that combination was complex to set up. Soon after, I stumbled on FTPcopy and have found a good solution.

Here is a bash script to automate the process and create a daily mirror of whatever FTP server you want to back up.

1. Download and install FTPCopy from the repositories.
   sudo apt-get install ftpcopy
2. Change to a directory that will store the script and open a new text file.
   cd /path/to/directory
vi ftpbackup
3. Press i, then copy and paste the following text.
   #!/bin/bash

   USER=username
   HOST="website"
   PASS=password
   REMOTE="public_html/"
   DIR=$(echo "/path/to/backup/$HOST")
   cd $DIR

   # Issue FTPcopy command
ftpcopy --no-delete -l 1 -u $USER -p $PASS $HOST $REMOTE .

4. Be sure to change the values for website, storage directory, remote directory, host, username and password.
5. Save and exit the text file by typing :wq
6. Make the script executable by typing chmod a+x /path/to/script
7. Add the script to the crontab so it will be executed on a regular basis. I use Webmin for this type of administration work, but it is possible to use the command line. Use this example to sort out the format. Mine runs daily at 12 AM.

To clarify, this code changes directories into the backup folder, then issues the ftpcopy command. The remote directory of public_html is common on many webservers, but be sure to confirm before running the script. The no-delete option means that files are not removed from the backup if they’ve been removed from the web server. The l option simply means provide feedback of what files are being moved — this can be viewed in your user mail.

After the time has passed for the first time, check the folder where your backups will reside to make sure they are being added as planned.

Since it’s been 2 months now since I’ve been using it, I thought it was time for some opinions. I’ve already installed Windows 7, run Keynote presentations, taken it on a road trip, and done nearly all of my daily computer activities. In every way, this machine is superior to my previous MacBook.

The Outside

The solid aluminum exterior of this MacBook Pro is a massive improvement over the polycarbonate shell of the MacBook–and previously, the iBook–as it has very little flex and will be the end of the dreaded palm rest cracking that affected nearly every previous generation of MacBook. That aluminum shell means this computer is lighter and thinner as well. While likely not a very big difference (I’ve yet to break out the tape measure), you can feel it when it is in a case or backpack.

The assortment of ports on the left side has changed somewhat as well. Gone is the dedicated audio-in jack and FireWire 400 and in its place is a backwards-compatible FireWire 800 port. The single audio jack now deals with digital and analog input and output on its own. In addition to the standard Gigabit ethernet and 2 USB 2.0 ports is the new Mini DisplayPort and SD card slot. The DisplayPort requires another new dongle from the Apple Store. The SD card slot has already proven itself worthy, by copying camera photos during a brief road trip. It is an item I think probably won’t be useful all the time, but those occasional times it is required, it will be great to have. The Kensington lock slot has also been moved to the right side. This is a good thing for me, as I always put my computer ports down in my bag, and now the lock is readily accessible. Using the lock for the first time, it was very tight, but after applying some pressure, it now slips in and out fairly easily. The aluminum is slightly bent inside, but nothing major. As usual, your mileage may vary.

The backlit keyboard is definitely my favourite upgrade. I had no idea that seeing what I was typing in the dark would be so handy. A side benefit of this technology is that the ambient light sensor also subtly adjusts the screen brightness to an optimum level.

Other changes from the Core 2 Duo MacBook are the built-in battery and “buttonless” touchpad. Technically the touchpad is a button, but just looking at it shows nothing. So far I’ve found it to be slightly more sensitive when using a thumb to activate. Battery life is also an improvement, though I may not get a chance to test it fully until I return to school in a few days.

The display on this machine is also noticeably brighter, with more vivid colours. After putting the two machines side by side, there is a definite difference, as shown above. I had heard all the horror stories about the screens being a black mirror, but so far that has not been an issue for me. Sure, there is some reflection, but the beauty of a laptop is that it can easily be adjusted to mitigate the glare.

Apple has been touting their non-user-replaceable batteries in their more recent notebooks, and this MacBook Pro delivers.

The Inside

The inside components of a computer are certainly more important than the outside, and the upgrades to this generation of MacBook Pro make it a screamer. Even though the clock speed is only increased from 2.0 GHz to 2.26, the newer processor is far more efficient, and the faster RAM, along with a boost to 4 GB means there is virtually no wait for applications to load or for the machine to shut down. The graphics subsystem is the biggest gainer in the lot, with a move from the GMA950 chip to nVidia’s 9400M system. This means smoother transitions in Keynote, more frames in both games and iTunes visualizer and more speed in the future when more applications use Apple’s OpenCL computing language. I’m looking forward to that.

To put a numbers to the improvements, I took measurements of some common computing tasks of both machines.

Overall the machine certainly feels speedy, with minimal pauses between application changes. Disk performance is basically the same, seeing as the drive was just transferred between systems.

A big change I have noticed is that this computer is far quieter than my previous MacBook. That one had fans that would peak at 6200 RPM when doing anything remotely computation intensive. Even watching Flash video would cause the fans to spike. On this computer, they seem to peak at 2200 RPM, as that was the maximum speed I observed while encoding some MP3 files recently. Obviously it’s a change that won’t be listed on the spec sheet, but it is a welcome change for anyone using their computer for semi-heavy lifting.

I’ve been very happy with this new machine and the benefits it brings. Though I said it about the last MacBook I owned, this MacBook Pro will likely stick around for a long time, thanks to its powerful processor, aluminum shell and fast graphics chip.

What is it used for?

You may be wondering what the real purpose of the board is, but there is no definite answer to that. In reality, Arduino, being an open source hardware project, has been used in numerous projects seen around the web. Any component that can be plugged into one of the pins can be controlled, which means people have used it to create secret knock opening doors, a radio controlled lawnmower, even a laser harp. This only scratches the surface. My plans, without giving too much away, include building a panoramic camera mount and adding radio controls to household/garage items (project details will be here when they are completed). If you have any interest at all in electronics, I suggest picking one up and learning about it.

With the updates on Thursday, I decided to take the plunge and try my hand at building the OS on my own. If you decide to do the same, keep in mind it is a fairly advanced procedure, despite the attempts of Google to automate the processes. You’ll also need a Ubuntu computer with version 8.04 or later (I used my server running 9.04 Jaunty).

Building Chrome

All the instructions you need are on Google’s page about this very subject. It contains a very detailed procedure for downloading and compiling the system to be installed on a regular computer or run with VMWare. Since I don’t have any spare hardware lying around, I went the VMWare route.

You’ll have to start by downloading the 200 MB files. If you wish to use the tarball version, here are the commands you can use to move to the home directory, download and unzip.

From there you can start with the steps on the above Google link.

The process is relatively straightforward as compared to a standard compile/install procedure, thanks to Google’s use of bash scripts. I proceeded without incident until it came time to run the ./enter_chroot.sh script. This one failed multiple times and it took me some time to figure out that I needed to run ./make_chroot.sh a second time. After that, there were no more problems, and I soon had a VMWare disk to use.

Using Chrome OS

If you wish to bypass the whole build process, gdgt has graciously provided a direct link to a download for a VMWare image. Going that route can definitely save some time.
After installing a VMWare Fusion trial, I had Chrome OS running and was presented with a nice log in screen. If you enter your Google address and password, all the applications should be set up immediately with your data and you can begin to use the OS right away. Once logged in, you really are using a giant browser.
At this stage, the open-source Chromium downloads lag behind what Google presented earlier this week, so some of the features aren’t available yet. Right now there is a Chrome browser, and that’s about it. The button at the top left shows some of the applications available, like Calendar, YouTube, Documents, Hulu and more.
These are essentially just links to the respective Google pages. The top right corner has buttons for changing a few settings and checking battery and WiFI information. Other than that, it’s pretty spartan (there isn’t even a shutdown button).

It is an interesting take on the future of computing, a problem I noticed is that a weak internet connection really dampens the benefits. To truly make use of the features built in, you’ll need a solid pipe, because waiting to even check a calendar is a bit annoying. If/when this makes its way to netbooks with wireless internet solutions, that will make a very nice package.

Is this the future?

Using these early builds, I found myself wondering who will want to use an operating system that deals very little with local storage and functionality. Google’s intention is that it will be used almost exclusively on netbooks — the tiny 8-10″ computers that are mostly used for email and web browsing. They’ve even decided that to use their version of Chromium, you’ll have to buy a new device (it won’t be available as a software only product). For that purpose, I can see it being a success. For full scale computing, I don’t think it will be usurping Windows or Mac OS X any time soon.

Having installed the RC build 7100 and using it on and off for the last few weeks, I must say that I actually like this software. Despite a few annoyances here and there, overall Windows 7 is a big step up from Vista, and even XP. Let’s take a closer look.

Installation

Right away, I was impressed with the changes to the installation process. Nearly all irrelevant options are hidden, and the important ones are out in plain site. Formatting my Boot Camp partition was as easy as clicking “Format” and waiting less than 10 seconds. After entering the RC serial number, all files were copied, settings updated and the computer reboot into Windows. From start to finish the process took 50 minutes, but that doesn’t include the extra finagling I had to do to get the setup disk to work properly with Boot Camp.

Interface

There are a multitude of changes in the interface, and most of them are for the better. The taskbar has now been called the smartbar and it gets its name from only displaying application icons, and the way applications can be “bolted” to the bar. Personally, I find this an excellent way of managing open applications, and the fact that a simple mouseover displays the entire window means a quick look is possible to make sure you have the right application.

One tiny thing that has bothered me since starting with the RC Beta is that scrolling does not automatically select the window beneath the cursor. On Mac OS X, scrolling is done in the application that the cursor is presently over, regardless if it is active or not. While it sounds like I’m splitting hairs, it becomes a major nuisance when switching back and forth between applications.

My MacBook, with its GMA950 graphics chip, returned a Windows Experience Index score of 3.2, with the lowest score being the graphics system. Despite this, Windows 7 is very snappy, and the Aero interface displayed without trouble. Some machines that were unable to take full advantage of the Vista interface eye candy might be able to do so now.

Application updates

Windows 7 also sees some nice enhancements to core software functionality and application updates. A big component of Windows Media Player is the ability to stream to other devices on the network using the UPnP server. While I didn’t really test this feature, I was happy to see a UPnP viewer included in the application. This meant I could listen to/watch any media that was stored on my file server. Unfortunately, this feature didn’t work completely correctly, as files were duplicated in the library for some reason, but the actual release version may work better.

One of the biggest surprises I found was the new take on wallpaper in Windows 7. As shown in the above picture, some of the choices are very trippy. That psychedelic turtle has found a place on my wallpaper, mostly because it is so unlike any of Microsoft’s previous wallpapers.

Many other applications have seen updates as well. Paint has more features seen in a standard image-manipulation program, Screen Capture is more versatile, network tools are more powerful and the control panel organizes things more clearly, to name a few.

This only really begins to scratch the surface of this massive upgrade, but from what I’ve been able to see/use on the last few months, I’d say Microsoft has done a good job listening to user complaints and acting on them. Of course, it will never fully replace the OS X installation on my MacBook, but I no longer dread booting into the alternate reality.

The result is a Ubuntu bash script that renames all the formatted files in a folder with the actual episode titles. Right now it requires Linux because it uses wget and XMLStarlet to download the file data, but I may release an additional script that works with other systems.

The entire script is made possible by the excellent XML feed service by TVRage.com.

Download the script

Prerequisite

XMLStarlet
XMLStarlet is a small command-line utility that can process XML files and text. It is required to traverse the XML structure of the TVRage.com data. To download this utility in Ubuntu, simply use the repositories.

Usage

Change paths where appropriate.

1. Save the script to a known folder, change into that folder, and make it executable by issuing the following command
   chmod a+x ./tvrenamer.sh
2. Change the current directory to the folder that contains the video files.
   cd Television/Season\ 1
3. Rename all the files in the folder to use the format SxxExx.extension
   S08E01.avi
S08E02.avi
S08E03.avi
S08E04.avi
S08E05.avi
S08E06.avi
S08E07.avi
S08E08.avi
S08E09.avi
S08E10.avi
4. Call the script and append the name of the show to the end of the command.
   /path/to/script/tvrenamer.sh Simpsons
5. Watch as the shows all magically change their name.
   Downloading show data for 'Simpsons'...
Downloading episode guide...
Simpsons - S08E01 - Treehouse of Horror VII.avi
Simpsons - S08E02 - You Only Move Twice.avi
Simpsons - S08E03 - The Homer They Fall.avi
Simpsons - S08E04 - Burns, Baby Burns.avi
Simpsons - S08E05 - Bart After Dark.avi
Simpsons - S08E06 - A Milhouse Divided.avi
Simpsons - S08E07 - Lisa's Date with Density.avi
Simpsons - S08E08 - Hurricane Neddy.avi
Simpsons - S08E09 - El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer (The Mysterious Voyage of Homer).avi
Simpsons - S08E10 - The Springfield Files.avi

If you wish to access the script simply by typing the name (tvrenamer, for example) simply issue the following two commands:

From this point, you simply need to use tvrenamer "TV Show".

The script reads all files in the folder, but will only rename files that are in the S**E** format. TV show titles must have escaped spaces to properly search for the show, or be surrounded in ” quotes.

If there are too many acronyms in there, just remember the name Mediatomb. Mediatomb is an open-source, cross-platform DLNA server that streams a variety of media formats across a local network to whatever compatible device you happen to have running at the end. It can stream video, music, photos in numerous formats, and will even transcode others so that they can stream as well. All this tinkering comes at the expense of user-friendliness, though. In most cases, the regular binaries for each operating system will do most of the cool tricks I mention here. To get the most out of the system, however, requires you to compile from source.

As mentioned in my previous file server post, I’m running Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackolope on a “headless” Intel server, which I control via the terminal. Since the computer doesn’t restart, I wanted it to run as a daemon, which was where I ran into a problem. For some reason, Jaunty didn’t play nice with the standard daemon package, so I had do a little digging to find the solution.

Steps

1. Create a temporary working directory by issuing this command
   $ mkdir temp
2. Install the ffmpegthumbnailer libraries by installing libffmpegthumbnailer. Use the command sudo apt-get install libffmpegthumbnailer and enter your admin password when prompted.
3. Compile ffmpeg using the tutorial at Juliensimon.blogspot.com but include the configure tag --enable-libffmpegthumbnailer. Don’t move on until the configuration confirms thumbnailer installation.
4. Compile and install the Mediatomb binaries from source — again, I used the excellent tutorial at Juliensimon.blogspot.com
5. Check the functionality of Mediatomb to issuing the command $ mediatomb then opening a web browser to http://ip_of_server:49152/
6. To make the daemon work, first download the daemon package by issuing this command (one line)
   $ wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/universe/m/mediatomb/mediatomb-daemon_0.11.0-3ubuntu2_all.deb
7. Now extract the files in the package to the temporary directory created earlier
   $ dpkg-deb -x mediatomb-daemon_0.11.0-3ubuntu2_all.deb temp

   As you can see, the daemon package is just a collection of configuration files, so installing it properly is just a matter of copying the files back.

8. Change to the temporary directory with the files by typing
   $ cd temp_directory_name
9. Type these commands one line at a time to copy the files back to their rightful place. The commands with two lines should be printed as one single command.
   $ sudo cp etc/mediatomb/config.xml /etc/mediatomb/config.xml

   $ sudo cp etc/default/mediatomb /etc/default/mediatomb

   $ sudo cp etc/init.d/mediatomb /etc/init.d/mediatomb

   $ sudo cp etc/logrotate.d/mediatomb /etc/logrotate.d/mediatomb

   $ sudo cp usr/share/doc/mediatomb-daemon/README.Debian usr/share/doc/mediatomb-daemon/README.Debian

   $ sudo cp usr/share/doc/mediatomb-daemon/changelog.Debian.gz /usr/share/doc/mediatomb-daemon/changelog.Debian.gz

   $ sudo cp usr/share/doc/mediatomb-daemon/changelog.gz /usr/share/doc/mediatomb-daemon/changelog.gz

   $ sudo cp usr/share/doc/mediatomb-daemon/copyright /usr/share/doc/mediatomb-daemon/copyright

   If the copy comes back with errors about directories, you’ll likely have to use the mkdir to create the requested folders.

10. Now the important step is setting the proper permissions of the folder /var/lib/mediatomb. Change into that directory by issuing
    $ cd /var/lib/
11. The folder /var/lib/mediatomb should contain 3 files:
    $ ls mediatomb
mediatomb.html
sqlite3.db
sqlite3.db-journal
12. Change the ownership of the folder and its contents.
    $ chown -R mediatomb:mediatomb mediatomb
13. Change the permissions of the HTML file.
    $ sudo chmod 666 mediatomb/mediatomb.html
14. Change the permissions of the remaining two files:
    $ sudo chmod 644 mediatomb/sqlite3.db
$ sudo chmod 644 mediatomb/sqlite3.db-journal
15. Make the script run at startup.
    $ update-rc.d mediatomb defaults

To start the server, simply issue the command sudo /etc/init.d/mediatomb start. If the server doesn’t start, view the Mediatomb log file to see what else is happening.

Exit with :q. I’ve been running this setup since I first built the server, and it has worked exceptionally well.