dteirney.me

B16A Vacuum Line Diagram

Sun, 10 Oct 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Below is the vacuum line diagram for a first generation B16A out of an EF9 body shell. A vacuum line diagram is very useful for making sure that all the vacuum lines are going where they are supposed to be going, particularly after a B16A Engine Swap, or Ford XF Throttle Body Swap.

Ford XF Falcon Throttle Body Swap

Sun, 10 Oct 2004 00:00:00 +0000

In the search for more power, a bigger throttle body (TB) was determined to be the next place to investigate given that the intake, headers and exhaust had already been improved. Since I have access to a lathe and other machinery, the first thing I investigated was overboring the standard Honda throttle body.

Upon investigation, the standard second generation B16A throttle body looks like it can only be bored by about 1mm, perhaps 2mm before you breach into the cavity that the throttle position sensor (TPS) lives. Such a small increase in diameter for the amount of other work that is involved just didn’t seem worth it. So I decided to investigate the option of swapping in a completely different throttle body. Of course the best place to start looking is in the range of OEM throttle bodies that Honda produces. Unfortunately, the 60mm throttle plate in the second generation B16A TB is the largest size that Honda produces apart from the B18C Type R throttle body, which is only 2mm bigger at 62mm.

Honda Tips and Tricks

Sun, 10 Oct 2004 00:00:00 +0000

This page contains some of the tips and tricks that are useful for general maintenance of your Honda. At the moment there are only instructions on how to set the idle.

Set Idle

Setting the idle correctly on a Honda Civic (or any Honda) is important. If the idle is not set correctly the car will either idle too low, or it will idle too high causing the idle to surge up and down.

The Final Frontier for XBMC Media Center in 2011 - PVR Support

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

XBMC Media Center is intended to be the one stop stop for accessing media within the home. It includes out-of-the-box support for all the typical things found in a home where media consumption has moved on from turning on the telly and blindly channel surfing, e.g. playing DVDs, backups of DVDs, Movies, TV Shows, general Videos, showing Pictures and of course playing Music.

2011 will be the start of the “final frontier” for XBMC Media Center as it also starts to support integration with PVR backends such as VDR, TV Headend, MediaPortal and MythTV. This new area of media consumption will require some careful consideration in the user interface to help ensure that some of the seemingly unnecessary complexities of some off-the-shelf PVR solutions are neatly hidden from Joe Average user but still available to Joe Techie user. PVR support in XBMC Media Center will be one of my personal projects for 2011, focussing mainly on the MythTV add-on for XBMC and helping to ensure that the PVR support in XBMC is useful and user friendly.

Version 1.2 Photoeon Backgrounds Available for XBMC Media Center

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

After several hundred downloads of version 1.1 of the Photeon (Photo + AEON) backdrops/backgrounds for XBMC Media Center a more subdued version 1.2 is now available for download.

Download Photeon Backgrounds version 1.2

If you download and use the backgrounds please leave a comment. I’d love to know what people think of them or what could be improved!

Movies - original by Jean-Luc ST-Hilaire (clasixart) of Quebec, Canada.

Linux Backup Strategy Using Backupninja

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

No-one likes to loose digital data, especially precious memories in photos that can’t be replaced. I’ve had two pretty major hard drive failures in the last year and there’s nothing like the thought of having lost photos or other important information to give you the kick in the arse you need to make sure you have a backup strategy that is being followed.

About 9 months ago I had a 1TB hard drive start to fail. It had 360+ identified reallocated sectors and had numerous I/O errors while trying to access specific areas of the drive. That drive had all our photos on it. Luckily I got most of the data off it and, combined with a simple manual backup I was doing to an external drive, I didn’t loose a thing. It was a painful and somewhat stressful process restoring and checking the recovered data and could have easily resulted in significant data loss. I needed a more robust backup process. Our entire home computing system is based on Linux - Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04. This includes a desktop computer and a HTPC that triples as NAS, VDR using MythTV, and media centre using XBMC Media Centre.

New Zealand Freeview|HD running on XBMC from Myth TV

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

UPDATE (20-Aug-2009): The bulk of the patch has now been committed to XBMC in revision 22285. A few extra goodies added to the patch now. Might cause some conflicts once these are committed, but that might not be for a week or more. UPDATE (18-Aug-2009): A recent update of ffmpeg in XBMC (revision 21993 on 04-Aug-2009) meant that the original patch and instructions no longer worked. The instructions below have been updated and a new patch released. Much of the original patch is now directly in XBMC Media Center due to the ffmpeg update so it is much smaller. I maintain the Myth TV page in the XBMC wiki. Some people in New Zealand have contacted me to get instructions on what needs to be done to get recorded Freeview|HD content playing in XBMC from a Myth TV backend. Well, here those instructions are. Luckily there isn’t as much voodoo magic as there used to be. There will be even less voodoo once some of my other patches make it into XBMC proper, and Paul Kendall’s patches for LATM encapsulated AAC decoding finally wiggle their way into ffmpeg. These instructions assume:

Upgrade to Wordpress 2.5 went more or less to plan

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I have finally upgraded Wordpress to the latest version after becoming stagnant on some old 1.x version. It’s more or less gone to plan, although for some reason all of my category names have become empty! The Wordpress administration UI improvements are a welcome and refreshing change but there are still some confusing parts with quite different background colors behind some of the buttons. I can understand why they did it, but for some reason I didn’t even see some of the buttons first time round “where is the Publish button?” Generally the important stuff is much more accessible so great job! As expected since there is no plug-in management to speak of in Wordpress all of the plug-ins I had were well out of date. I’d really appreciate some form of management for these (similar to the package management on Linux) so I can just be told when there is new stuff and say “yes, please download and update to the latest version, thank-you”. Trawling around the internet to get the latest versions is a bit painful. Anyway, watch this space for a slowly updating Wordpress theme based on Deliciously Blue, which was curiously based on the previous theme I was using (Glossy Blue). I’m going to try for a strictly gray-scale theme with a splash of two contrasting colors to see what I’ve learned from my typography reading.

Version 1.1 Photeon backgrounds for XBMC AEON skin released

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

After several hundred downloads of version 1.0 of the Photeon (Photo + AEON) backdrops/backgrounds for the XBMC Media Center AEON skin, a bigger, better, brighter version 1.1 is now available for download.

Download Photeon Backgrounds version 1.1

If you download and use the backgrounds please leave a comment. I’d love to know what people think of them or what could be improved! Movies - original by Jean-Luc ST-Hilaire (clasixart) of Quebec, Canada. TV Shows - original by Miroslav Sárička (v_hujer) of Prievidza, Slovakia. Clips - original by Melanie Kuipers ** (yum) of Germany. Pictures - original by Piotr Lewandowski ** (LeWy2005) of Gdynia, Pomorskie, Poland. Music - original by Bart Noszka (noszki) of Dabrowa, Slaskie, Poland. Games - original by Stephen Davies (steved_np3) of the UK. Arcade - original by Sas Van Veen ** (xtrapink) of the Netherlands. Apps - original by Brian Lary (blary54) of the United States. Weather - original by G Schouten de Jel (gabriel77) of Den Haag, Z-H, Netherlands. Settings - original by Giovanni Miniato (desmox) of Italy. Extras - originals by GLS (glspro5) of Argentina, and Laura Shreck (Columbine) of the United States. The backgrounds are all 720p BMP images so will work with both original XBox hardware and Linux/Windows HTPC solutions without any rescaling.

XBMC on XBox is definitely too slow to play HD H264 content

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

For a while I’ve known that getting the original XBox to play HD content was going to be a big ask. Plenty of places have said it just won’t happen. Today I tested a 720p H264 movie that is freely available for download called Big Buck Bunny. With debug information turned on there was still plenty of memory free (~20Mb) but the CPU spiked to 100% and playback was a miserable 17fps. The sound was playing fine, but the video was very laggy. In the debug log I was very amused to see the following: 16:39:31 M: 18128896 DEBUG: msg: ************************************************ **** Your system is too SLOW to play this! **** ************************************************ Possible reasons, problems, workarounds: - Most common: broken/buggy _audio_ driver - Try -ao sdl or use the OSS emulation of ALSA. - Experiment with different values for -autosync, 30 is a good start. - Slow video output - Try a different -vo driver (-vo help for a list) or try -framedrop! - Slow CPU - Don't try to play a big DVD/DivX on a slow CPU! Try some of the lavdopts, e.g. -vfm ffmpeg -lavdopts lowres=1:fast:skiploopfilter=all. - Broken file - Try various combinations of -nobps -ni -forceidx -mc 0. - Slow media (NFS/SMB mounts, DVD, VCD etc) - Try -cache 8192. - Are you using -cache to play a non-interleaved AVI file? - Try -nocache. Read DOCS/HTML/en/video.html for tuning/speedup tips. If none of this helps you, read DOCS/HTML/en/bugreports.html. It’s very saddening to see that the Xbox has almost come to the end of it’s usefulness. I could look at hooking in some of the mplayer options to try and help the CPU out but it really looks like its time to start putting together a new Linux HTPC now that HD TV is available in New Zealand via DVB-T.

How to add page up and page down functions to the XBox remote for XBMC

Fri, 23 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I’m using the Aeon skin for XBMC and the skin doesn’t support scroll bars. This makes it a bit time consuming navigating long lists. To workaround this you can configure the XBox remote to perform PageUp and PageDown actions by altering the Keymap.xml file in the UserData folder. UPDATE: This no longer seems to work on later versions of XBMC. I will post another article that contains details on the changes necessary. Change the existing buttons mapped to the PageUp and PageDown actions for the remote. Change them to be and as shown below (at the top of the Keymap.xml file).

Photeon backdrops for XBMC Aeon skin released

Wed, 21 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Version 1.0 of the Photeon (Photo + Aeon) backdrops for XBox Media Center (XBMC) Aeon skin are now available for download. UPDATE: An updated Version 1.1. of the Photeon Backgrounds for the XBMC AEON skin have been released! Download Photeon Backdrops Version 1.0. If you download and use them please leave a comment. I’d love to know what people think of them! All images in this Photeon series of backdrops for the Aeon skin were obtained from stock.xchng and then modified as necessary. All images are still protected by the original terms and conditions of that web site. Please respect the original license conditions as noted within the photeon-backdrops-1.0.zip file. Special thanks to each of the image authors for giving permission to redistribute the modified versions of the images:

Abstract backdrops for XBMC Aeon Skin

Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve created some abstract backdrops for the XBox Media Center (XBMC) Aeon Skin. Sample photos of the backdrops using the Aeon skin are shown below.

TV Shows

Movies

Pictures

Music

Weather

Live TV (part of the Rand Al Thor Aeonmod)

Live TV recordings listing

Live TV channel listing

Settings

Another place to go for iPhone modifications in New Zealand

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

There’s now another place to get modifications for your iPhone so it works as well as it can in New Zealand on the Vodafone network. Kiwi-ise contains a number of packages that can be installed using Installer.app to provide:

Caller ID
Phone Number Formatting
Voicemail button
Call Forwarding Active Fix
Alerts for Unread SMS messages and Missed Calls
Kiwi-ised Google Maps application icon

It includes all of the great stuff that was in the XK72 repository plus some other goodies. I particularly look forward to seeing how the alerts for unread SMS messages and missed calls will work. I really missed that feature off my old Samsung phone. It’s great to see so much effort being put into making using the iPhone as simple as possible here in New Zealand. There’s also great reading about jailbreaking and unlocking in general.

Using version 1.1.3 on the iPhone in New Zealand

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

It’s finally possible to upgrade to the latest version of the iPhone software (1.1.3) in New Zealand. And it’s really straightforward - way easier than some of the previous unlocks.

Sync your iPhone to create a backup of the configuration within iTunes (just in case something goes wrong and you need to restore to 1.1.3).
Upgrade the iPhone to 1.1.3
Follow the instructions at iClarified to Unlock Your iPhone with ZiPhone GUI (Windows). I used ZiPhone 2.2 on Windows and didn’t have any problems with SMS or dialing crashing the iPhone after the unlock.
Open Installer and add the XK72 repository http://xk72.com/iphone/repos
Within Installer, open the Tweaks (XK72) category and install all 1.1.3 packages - Caller ID update (1.1.3), NZ Phone Formats (1.1.3)
Set the Region Format to New Zealand. Settings > General > International > Region Format
Set the APN for Edge to direct.vodafone.net.nz (leave Username and Password blank). Settings > General > Network > Edge > APN.
Change the Voicemail button so it dials 707 rather than nothing. Manually dial *5005*86*707#.

Solution to Error (1604) When restoring iPhone in iTunes

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I have found a solution to the following immensely frustrating error

The iPhone could not be restored. An unknown error occurred. Error (1604)

My base configuration (which I ended up with after trying some of the weird potential solutions I ran across) is:

MacBook Pro
Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.1)
iTunes 7.5

The solution that worked for me was:

Move the /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/MobileDevice.framework folder to the Trash
Update iTunes to 7.6 using Apple Software Update

Deleting the mentioned folder and re-installing iTunes may also rectify the problem. This solution was found in the Independence Callback Error thread at ModMyIFone while trying to find a solution to another problem I was having when launching iNdependence. Hopefully this post will be more obvious to people searching for a solution. After that change I managed to Restore the iPhone to firmware 1.1.1 without any problems. I’d spent over 4 hours a previous night trying all the silly permutations of ways to get around the problem that I found on the net. iNdependence 1.3.2 beta is also working without the callback reference error. Previous attempts to resolve included everything I saw on the internet and installing just about every version of iTunes (7.6, 7.5, 7.4.3, 7.4.2, 7.3) onto a Parallels Windows VM to see if it was in fact some silly error with iTunes. The Apple Support Forum - Error 1604 When restoring iPhone in iTunes mentions a number of hit and miss things to try:

Switch from Kubuntu to Ubuntu

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve just made the move to Ubuntu from Kubuntu. I started Linux life with an Kubuntu Live CD borrowed off a MythTV user from work over a year ago. Having been frustrated with how much configuration was necessary to do what seemed like sensible things I installed the ubunutu-desktop package about a week ago. I don’t think I’ll be going back. Ubuntu works fantastically well with the default configuration. It has lots of the things I commonly do all out in the open

Fix to receive Vodafone voice message text messages on the iPhone

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I stumbled upon a fix that allows text messages from Vodafone New Zealand to appear when you miss a call and someone leaves a voice message. The fix has been tested with iPhone firmware version 1.1.1.

Open Installer, and add the following source if not already there - http://i.unlock.no/
Choose the Unlocking Tools category.
Install SMS Fix

This fix was a frequently asked questions titled SMS received from internet is scrambled/not working? at iphone.unlock.no.

Fix for XBMC MythTV script database connection failure after MythTV upgrade on (K)Ubuntu

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t understand why the password for the mythtv MySQL database user is reset whenever the MythTV package is updated in Ubuntu (and it’s derivatives like Kubuntu). When this happens the Xbox Media Center (XBMC) fails to connect to the database. It’s somehow related to the password authentication mechanism that the MySQL libraries use on the XBox within XBMC. Here are the instructions from one of my older posts to get the XBMC MythTV script to be able to connect to the MythTV database again. These steps are performed on the MythTV server.

Apple iPhone 1.1.1 update instructions for New Zealand

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I finally decided to update the iPhone from 1.0.2 to 1.1.1. I’ll still be a version behind as version 1.1.2 was released by Apple earlier in November. The update process was reasonably straight forward. No problems like Ryan Maxwell of Red Ink Scribbles had - Dreaded 1.1.1 Update. I found and used a different method though. There are lots of upgrade methods to choose from, but the one used below seemed to be the easiest. You don’t even need any software on your computer.

Adhoc internet access in New Zealand is ridiculously expensive

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

How can it possibly cost $25 for 12 hours access to the internet when you are staying at a hotel that charges upwards of $200 a night? That’s just ridiculous! I’m staying in a hotel in Wellington for a conference. The hotel probably services mainly business guests so I would have thought that internet access would be free of charge. Just throttle the wireless connection speed or cap it somehow to prevent problems with people trying to download the latest episode of Heroes via bittorrent. The hotel is also in a Telecom Wi-Fi hotspot. That service only charges $10 an hour (charged on a per second basis) for non XTRA customers. Woohoo, sign me up Scotty, NOT! It only costs me $39.95 a month for “as fast as you can eat” access with a 5Gb limit at home. That XTRA hourly rate is a complete rip-off, as is the rate the hotel charges.

Not just ridiculously expensive adhoc internet access but also ridiculously slow

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000

The ridiculously expensive Wi-Fi internet access at the hotel in Wellington is also ridiculously slow now that it’s reached after hours time. That’s the problem with Wi-Fi, the more people on an access point, the slower it gets. I almost contemplated not writing this post because it would be too painful. $25 for 12 hours to get eventually get a connection that slows to less than modem connection speeds is terrible. Bring on free wired internet in hotel rooms!

Really quietening down a Sundance Spa SunZone ozone generator

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I thought I had got lucky with my last attempt at stopping the intermittent humming noise coming from the ozone generator in the Sundance Spa. The last attempt was a bit unscientific and can be read at an earlier post. I didn’t work long term. The noise came back last week. While in the spa on Friday evening I noticed that the bubbles coming out of the circulation jet outlet were also intermittent. Every now and then some larger bubbles would come out. So I started playing with the outlet of the circulation pump with my foot. If part of the outlet was covered off the noise from ozone generator stopped and so did the larger bubbles. Interesting. I popped the spa panels off at the weekend and looked more closely at the line running from the mazzi jet to the SunZone ozone generator. Sure enough I could see very small air bubbles getting sucked into the air line where it connected to the mazzi jet. A few zip ties later and that connection was sealed. As soon as it sealed the noise stopped as well. Voila! I zip tied all of the other connectors in that same air line and checked the connections for all of the other components as well. I also zip tied the air line well out of the way of the other components. Now the spa really is quiet with a consistent stream of small bubbles coming out of the circulation pump. Excellent! Hopefully this problem is sorted for good now.

Quietening down a noisy SunZone ozone generator in a Sundance Spa

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

The Sundance Spa has been making a low humming/buzzing noise on and off for the past few weeks. This noise is quiet in comparison to the gurgling noise the spa used to make before the circulation pump was replaced, but it’s still annoying. The low frequency humming/buzzing noise was intermittent which made it all the more obvious as it came and went. It sounded like something was loose or vibrating within the spa. I took off the front panels of the spa to isolate the noise, which turned out to be coming from the SunZone ozone generator. This device uses high intensity UV light to create ozone that is sucked into the circulation water supply to help with sanitation. To try and get rid of the noise, I thought I’d see if anything was obviously loose in the generator. After turning off the power to the spa I removed the SunZone ozone generator which was only held on by 4 wood screws. On the back though, there were at least 12 metal screws, 3 bolts and 2 rivets. Too many things to make pulling it apart simple. Onto plan B. I held the unit at various angles and gently thumped the unit with the base of my hand in the hope that if something were loose it would move enough that it wouldn’t vibrate any more. It was a bit of a long shot but it was worth a try. After reinstalling and turning the power back on I was pleasantly surprised to not be hearing that annoying buzz anymore. Magic! Sometimes I get lucky. While I was there I also zip-tied the hartford loop in the ozone air line up above water level. Previously it was just sitting on the top of the circuit board housing. Not sure if that had any affect on the noise.

Getting direct rendering to work with Kubuntu Gutsy (7.10) and Intel GMA 950 chipset

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I spent eons this afternoon trying to get direct rendering to work with Kubuntu Gutsy (7.10) so the recently installed Compiz Fusion visual effects actually look remotely impressive rather than clunky and old skool. I am using AIGLX as opposed to XGL as my Shuttle SD32G2 server has an integrated Intel GMA 950 chipset which AIGLX supports well in Linux. After much chagrin and reading of numerous bugs and waffly semi-related threads I finally found one page that actually resolved the problem (xserver-xgl on gutsy doesn’t work). I removed the xserver-xgl package from the server and double checked that everything for AIGLX was setup correctly. HOWTO AIGLX contains instructions for configuring AIGLX targeted for Gentoo but should work fine for most Linux distros. glxinfo | grep direct now returns the much desired direct rendering: Yes output. Wohoo! No longer is scrolling in Firefox and other applications painfully slow and jumpy. The visual effects in Compiz Fusion are also now crisp and smooth as opposed to jagged and choppy. Excellent. Not sure it was worth the hours of what felt like banging of my head against a brick wall though. It’s unfortunate that the problem may have arisen as I may have installed the xserver-xgl when I first started configuring the server to use XGL for Compiz. Rats!

KDE doesn't start after upgrading to Kubuntu Gutsy 7.10

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I can’t believe that the latest release of Kubuntu Gutsy (7.10) has been in beta for so long. The upgrade rendered my system all but useless because KDE wouldn’t start. When I logged in the only thing that was presented to me was the new Kubuntu background. Nothing more, nothing less. Starting Kubuntu with the Session in Failsafe mode presented a terminal window with the new Kubuntu background behind it. This was all it did, but I presume this is all that Failsafe mode does. Starting the X server using startx threw an error about the user not being authorized. I found a few links like X: user not authorized to run the X server, aborting with similar looking problems. This error was resolved using dpkg-reconfigure x11-common and changing Allowed Users to “Anybody” instead of “Console”. Running startkde then had KDE fire up but then bail back to the login screen. The last thing I saw in the terminal window was

3 day review of the iPhone

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been using the iPhone for a little over 3 days now. I’m still in the honeymoon period, but below is a first impression review. I’ll do another post with the bits I really like - there’s too many to list here…

Things that I’ve Missed

Below is the list of stuff that I have actually missed so far. I’ve recently being using a Samsung D900 so unfortunately the bar is quite low and the iPhone surpassed most existing functionality by miles.

Yet another iPhone running in New Zealand

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I am lucky enough to be one of the many New Zealanders using an iPhone. Many have gone before and many more will follow. The first hacked iPhone may belong to John Ballinger of Bluespark Interactive as described at Andrew James Sommervell’s blog. The Red Ink Scribbles iPhone Review Part II: The Unlocked Phone blog post contains the best instructions I’ve seen to configure the iPhone correctly for New Zealand after it has been unlocked. It contains instructions to:

On the lookout for a new WordPress theme

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a bit over the old theme and have been on the lookout for a 2 column fluid layout theme for the site that is simple and clear with good typography. For the moment the site is using Vertigo, which will need some tweaking to show useful things like the name of the site and to fix some of the overflow errors in the footer. Using the WordPress theme viewer got a bit tedious as there are over a thousand themes and not many appear to have been tagged very well. Watch this space for a new and improved look in the coming weeks.

Configuring a Shuttle SD32G2 to wakeup using ACPI from Linux

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I recently configured my Shuttle SD32G2 MythTV PVR server to automatically wakeup when it needed to record a scheduled TV recording. Many of the examples on the web for doing this from MythTV used NVRAM. However, after installing NVRAM it didn’t recognise the BIOS. Given how NVRAM splashes about in sensitive memory in the BIOS I wasn’t too keen to try my luck getting that to work. Some other web pages such as ACPI Wakeup mentioned being able to use the Linux Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) instead. This was a much better option and I soon had everything working using simple command line scripts. To configure your Shuttle SD32G2 server to work with ACPI all you need to do is:

MythTV server now starts up and shuts down automatically

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve spent the last few nights playing with the wonderful world of Linux Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) so that the MythTV server will now automatically start up to record a scheduled TV show, and automatically shut down afterwards if there are no logged in users. This is pretty cool because it means I won’t miss recording any more of the Americas Cup Highlights because I didn’t get out of bed early enough to turn on the server. It was a pretty arduous task with a number of steps based on content from a number of different web-sites to get things to work. After all the research though it’s not actually that complicated to setup. At a high level the following was done (subsequent blog posts will cover off some of the more tricky bits in more detail):

Updated EPG instructions for MythTV in New Zealand

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been learning a bit more about Linux over the last few weeks and updated my electronic program guide (EPG) configuration to better reflect “standard” file location usage. The changes work better for my backup strategy as well as I do not backup any directory that starts with a dot.

The location of the EPG script has changed. The EPG related scripts are now in the /home/mythtv/epg directory. Within that directory are two further directories. One for the old xmlTVNZ EPG configuration and the other for the new nice EPG configuration.
The name of the EPG script has been changed. It is now simply called nice.sh and lives in the /home/mythtv/epg directory.
The nice.sh script has been modified to log to the /var/log/mythtv directory: cd /home/mythtv/epg/nice wget http://nice.net.nz/epg/listings.xml.gz gunzip -f listings.xml.gz rm /var/log/mythtv/mythfilldatabase.log mythfilldatabase --no-delete --file 1 -1 listings.xml --update > /var/log/mythtv/mythfilldatabase.log

Setting up an EPG for MythTV in New Zealand

Mon, 14 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

One of the most important things to get right for your MythTV installation is the Electronic Program Guide (EPG). The EPG lets MythTV know when all of the programs are on so it know when to record your favourite show like “The Best of Top Gear”. I’ve been using xmlTVNZ for some months now reasonably successfully. xmlTVNZ is a command line tool that scrapes various web-sites for the TV listings. The specific web-sites that are scraped depend on the command line parameters passed to it, which depend on which channels you are interested in getting EPG data for. Because of it’s scraping nature, it’s prone to falling over when a web-site that it scrapes changes. I think that problem may of occurred last night because all of the TV3 listings going forward disappeared. I managed to eventually get it working again by modifying the command line parameters to scrape TV3 off the Sky web-site instead of XTRA (which now appears to be Yahoo!). I’ve also belonged to the Myth TV in NZ mailing list for some months and recently there was talk of some other common EPG methods. At the time I didn’t look into it because xmlTVNZ had been working fine. Given the recent problems though I looked into both the “Hairy” and “Nice” EPG listing methods. The “Hairy” EPG is located at http://hairy.geek.nz/epg/ but when I looked last night there was some other strange directory listing there. The “Nice” EPG is located at http://nice.net.nz/epg/ and was all up when I looked last night. Both the Hairy and Nice EPG’s are based of the DVB program guide broadcast by Sky. The Nice one appears to have at least better information than obtained by xmlTVNZ because after updating there was lots of information updated after running mythfilldatabase for the same number of days. Below is a set of instructions for getting the Nice EPG running within MythTV. This just covers the analog stations that I am recording since I don’t have a satellite dish installed but should work for any set of stations that you are tuning.

Windows implodes back to Windows 95 look and feel and then back to XP

Sat, 05 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Windows has been running pretty mental on my laptop at home for some time. This morning while downloading the latest and greatest podcasts through iTunes it went into spastic mode again. This is one party trick I haven’t seen before though. Parts of the Window dressing got confused and reverted back to the Windows 95 look and feel. Then it magically went back to XP. All the while consuming ridiculous numbers of CPU cycles. No operating system should become so unreliable over time. Only iTunes is now stopping me from tossing Windoze out the door. Perhaps I should just buy a Mac. Windoze is normally pathetically slow and when it decides to have one of these fits it invariably wastes five or more minutes of my life.

Getting XBMC MythTV to work with Kubuntu Feisty Fawn (7.04)

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

After upgrading to Feisty Fawn (7.04) of Kubuntu I thought I had made all the necessary changes for my XBMC (XBox Media Center) MythTV frontend to talk to the Kubuntu server running the MythTV backend. Part of the Kubuntu upgrade altered the /etc/mysql/my.cnf configuration file for MySQL. This alteration required me to change the bind-address from localhost to the static IP addess of the server. I thought that this change would be sufficient but it turns out that it wasn’t. The MythTV frontend on my XBox failed to connect to the MySQL database on the MythTV backend for completely non-obvious reasons. If the error output in the MythTV frontend was better I probably would of identified the problem much more quickly. After some hours of looking closely at the MySQL configuration changes and various other network related settings in Kubuntu it looked like it might have something to do with the MySQL password handling. The old /etc/mysql/my.cnf had a old_passwords = 1 setting in it. The new configuration file did not. In addition, within the newly added configuration import directory /etc/mysql/conf.d there was an old_passwords.cnf file that explicitely set old_passwords = false. This gave me enough clues to see if the MythTV front end for the XBMC was in fact using the old password authentication mechanism (no longer supported by the server with this configuration). I found plenty of references to versions of PHP needing to use the old password authentication mechanism for MySQL and wondered if there was a similar issue with Python (the language used for the MythTV frontend on the XBMC). That information was enough to convince me to try and find out how to configure the server to continue to use the old password mechanism to see if that changed anything. Based on instructions in the MySQL reference documentation at Client does not support authentication protocol I first tried to get the MySQL daemon mysqld to start with the --old-passwords parameter so it worked like it would have prior to the upgrade. I couldn’t get this to work (the MySQL documentation is a bit sparse on how to set some of the configuration options) so I tried to set the password for the mythtv user using the OLD_PASSWORD() function instead of the PASSWORD() function. By a stroke of luck that actually worked. That’s where I’m leaving it too.

Latest version of Intel PROSet Wireless causes 100% CPU usage

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Last night I had the misfortune of updating to the latest version of the Intel PROSet Wireless application and device drivers (11.1.0.86). After updating the machine spins into a 100% CPU gobbling cycle by the ZCfgsvg.exe process. This is related to the Intel PROSet application. Killing the process moves the problem to the iFrmwork.exe process. After faffing around for 30 minutes trying to figure out what was poked I just uninstalled the whole damn thing.

Ripping DVDs on Linux using AcidRip

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

One of the main reasons for moving to Linux from than Windoze was to be able to use the Linux based MythTV PVR (Personal Video Recorder). Since the Linux machine will hold lots of recorded TV it might as well hold a bunch of ripped DVDs as well. Finding a good Linux DVD ripper that gives you just enough control to get a great rip was harder than I thought it should be.

Upgrading Kubuntu from Edgy Eft (6.10) to Feisty Fawn (7.04)

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Last night I finally got around to upgrading from the Edgy Eft version of Kubuntu to the recently released Feisty Fawn version. The process was amazingly simple. I updated all of the existing packages that needed upgrading and then the system very nicely told me that there was a completely new version of Kubuntu that I could upgrade to. So off I went and started the upgrade process.

The only place that I had any problems was with the MySQL configuration. A number of modified configuration files needed to be replaced as part of the installation. I had knowingly modified the /etc/mysql/my.cnf file so it had a properly networked bind-address. I needed to do this so my Xbox Media Center (XBMC) Myth TV client can connect to the MythTV backed database.

Wireless Client Update for Windows XP with Service Pack 2

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Windows released the Wireless Client Update for Windows XP with Service Pack 2 in January of 2007. By all accounts it seems to have resolved some of the reasons why I switched to using the Intel PROSet Wireless application.

The Wireless Client Update lets you configure wireless networks as broadcast networks or as nonbroadcast networks. Additionally, Wireless Auto Configuration sends probe requests only for nonbroadcast networks.

Since the latest release of the Intel software caused 100% CPU usage on my machine I ditched and went back to Windows management of wireless. With this Client Update installed I haven’t had any problems so far with my wireless network that isn’t broadcasting the SSID. Excellent. Thanks to the Non-broadcast Wireless Networks with Microsoft Windows article for providing the link to this breakthrough. Setting up the nonbroadcast network isn’t as simple as it was for the Intel wireless management, but at least it’s possible without the machine going into a tailspin:

Fixed video output device problem with MPlayer when opening files

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0000

For a while I haven’t been able to play video’s using Mplayer from the KDE GUI in Kubuntu. Playing files through the command line worked fine though. It only fails when using the “Open With” command from the Konqueror GUI and choosing “MPlayer Movie Player” I’d always get a Fatal Error box popping up saying:

Error opening/initializing the selected video_output (-vo) device.

I’ve been using MPlayer quite a lot from the command line since I’ve been doing a bit of DVD encoding of late using AcidRip so it hasn’t been too problematic. Anyway, the problem is now resolved and what follows are some simple instructions that worked for me.

SATA driver location changed in Linux kernel 2.6.20 configuration

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I just updated to the latest and greatest Linux kernel in my Kubuntu installation to get the latest drivers for my Hauppauge PVR-150 card and found that the SATA driver configuration has moved in the kernel configuration. I’ve done a kernel upgrade before so I knew to do the whole make oldconfig thing after copying over my known good Linux kernel configuration. I’d had a hell of a time figuring out how to get my machine to boot without the “Waiting for the filesystem…” halt during boot because I’m using SATA drives.

Strange iTunes behaviour when configured to automatically sync music to iPod

Mon, 11 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0000

In one of my recent posts I thought I had stumbled upon a great way to synchronize all of my podcasts to my iPod and still be able to use smart playlists to listen to them on the iPod. However, it turns out that when you have your iPod configured to automatically sync with your iTunes library it is not possible to play that music/podcast/whatever from within iTunes. You can play the content without any problems using the iPod directly, but with it connected via iTunes all of the tracks are greyed out and you can’t click on the play button in iTunes (even on the computer you are sync’ing with). This is particularly annoying for me because I have all my music at home and I want to listen to the music on the iPod at work through iTunes. As of yet there is no iTunes store purchased content on the iPod since the New Zealand store just opened days ago, hoorah! So, it seems pretty weird that I can’t play any of the content via iTunes. Initially I thought that it was because I hadn’t authorized my work computer since I’d just opened an Apple account. It wasn’t though - authorization didn’t do anything. Reading the iTunes help it even mentions:

Samsung D900 memory card "Not Allowed" problem solved

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

So I had this really strange problem with my new mobile phone. It takes a micro SD card for data storage and I bought a Kingston 1Gb card when I bought the phone. As far as the phone was aware there was a memory card installed because it showed the pretty icon on the main screen. However, whenever I tried to access any of the Memory Card storage area the phone would just beep with a “Not Allowed” error message displayed on the phone.

Some problems with assuming that all features can be added with plug-ins

Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Plug-ins are great, they allow feature introduction into software that the original authors didn’t dream of at the time. This commonly approached solution to preventing feature creep in the core of the product has some flaws though. When the orginal authors of the software don’t know what sorts of functionality people will want introduce they inherently have no way of knowing what hooks they need to provide plugin authors. They can’t design what they don’t know - it’s just impossible. There is somewhat of a solution though, create hooks so they plug-in authors can do anything they like! Of course, this is bad as well…

Trouble getting bluetooth to work on my HP laptop with Windows XP SP2

Sun, 29 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

What a freakin’ nightmare trying to get bluetooth to work on my HP laptop so I can get my new cellphone to talk to it via bluetooth.

To start with I couldn’t see any bluetooth devices entry in the Control Panel despite Windows Help telling me that’s where I had to go in order to configure it. After searching on the internet it seems like this is a common problem in Windows XP SP2. If Windows doesn’t find a somehow certified bluetooth device driver then it simply doesn’t show all of the Bluetooth related information in the Control Panel.

The Magic 8-Ball lives as a Google Gadget

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Yes, the famed Magic 8-ball lives as a Google Gadget.

This was the better of the two Magic 8-Ball gadgets that I found at Google.

Woohoo, the FCK editor doesn't scramble handwritten HTML in WordPress

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Wohoo, I’ve finally found an editor for WordPress that doesn’t scramble handwritten HTML. I’ve been trying to get some Google Gadgets and Picasa Web Album links working in posts, and the standard editor for Wordpress would scramble both cases - even when using HTML mode. Very frustrating.

The FCK editor (no not the naught word f*** but rather the unfortunate initials of the author) as part of the ChenPress plugin to WordPress seems to work a charm.

iTrip Rocks

Wed, 29 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0000

I purchased an iTrip several weeks ago and have been listening to a variety of podcasts on the way to and from work each day. After finding the one and only silent frequency in Auckland (88.0 FM) it’s been great listening to something other than radio/CDs which just seems like such a waste of time. When you travel for an hour each day it’s at least good to be making some use of that time. I’ve been learning some cool stuff and keeping up with the F1 season now that I can’t watch races since it’s only being shown on Sky. I’ve also managed to listen to a number of great web related conferences.

Pre-pay petrol pump madness

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0000

More and more petrol stations have now converted the normal process of getting a tank of gas into something more complicated than it need be. Going to the petrol station isn’t one of those life fulfilling activites so I want to spend as little time as possible there. Needless to say I always fill my petrol tank to the very top until no more petrol can physically fit in. Now, if you want a complete tank of gas you don’t really know how much it is going to cost, especially with the fluctuating cost of petrol these days, so having to go into the petrol station before filling up is just a waste of my time - especially when the attendant gets things wrong. I went to fill up at yesterday and the only pump left was the one furthest from the pay counter. It turned out to be a pre-pay pump “for security reasons” so I went into the station to pre-pay. I said I didn’t know how much it would be because I wanted a full tank so he just asked me the leave my card, which I did. I ambled back to the car thinking how silly this was and found out that nothing had changed. I clicked on the “Fill” button a few times but nothing worked. At this stage I was just a bit fed up and thought about just going to the next station. However, they had my card so I’d have to go back and I just couldn’t be bothered. In the meantime someone else had left so I just moved the car across to one of the normal pumps. Then last night Shelly also needed petrol. We had a 6c/l off voucher from Countdown to use at Gull so we went to the closest one of those near New Lynn. ALL of the pumps there were prepay and one was out of order because it had a cone in front of it. Shelly went inside to ask what on earth we did since we had the voucher. The attendant said to use the non-pre pay pump. Shelly then asked which one that was because we didn’t see one and he said “the one with the cone in front of it”, quickly followed by “we put the cone in front of it so that people can’t use it”. Now this seems pretty silly to us since we always thought that a cone meant that the pump was out of order. Anyway, long story short, all the faffing around at Gull with their moronic cone solution only saved $2.80 so next time were just going somewhere that doesn’t have pre-pay! Surely they can come up with a better solution than having everyone pre-pay to prevent people leaving without paying. For example, they could put a light above each pump that turns red once you start putting in petrol and then turns green once the account has been paid. That way it is completely obvious to the whole world when someone tries to skip out without paying the bill. This should prevent all but those people that simply don’t care from leaving without paying. Every single petrol station already has cameras in place to track what cars are at what pump, but I guess this still isn’t deterrent enough and the costs of tracking the people down eat into their margins too much. At least the red light/green light solution makes that fact that you are leaving without paying visible to something more obvious than a video recorder.

New Puppy

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Shelly finally convinced me that getting a dog wouldn’t mean that we would become house bound social slugs (as opposed to social butterflies - not that we do much flying). Our new addition to the household arrived on Saturday. She is a chocolate border collie and is named Keira (after much debating between that name and Brenna). So far so good. There haven’t been too many accidents in the house and she pretty much sleeps right through the night. Keira is a beautiful puppy and is very fluffy. She also has very pretty markings and is very laid back. Shelly has already started clicker training so in no time she’ll be smarter than me :)

Mountain Breakfast Madness

Mon, 05 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I was snowboarding at Mt Ruapehu at the weekend. I don’t like to eat as soon as I get up so I thought I would simply get breakfast on the mountain. Bad idea. Here’s what happened. Was standing in line waiting to order. Someone walks down the line and asks if anyone wants to order breakfast. At first glance this seemed all good - order while in line and pay when you get to the till. Saves some time. She took my order and I gave her my name. That seemed a little strange, that was all I gave her and was all I got. I got to the till carrying a V drink that I had also grabbed. Total $3.50. And then I thought I should mention I was also getting breakfast. Oh, that’ll be $16.50 then. At this point things seemed pretty dubious. Anyway I took a seat and waited. Then I noticed staff walking out wandering around with breakfasts calling (not so much calling as talking slightly aloud) names. At this point I realised that my chances of getting breakfast were pretty slim so I moved closer to where the staff were popping out of the kitchen. 10 minutes later a staff member with some form of European accent seemed to be calling out “Divad”. I asked if she meant David and she said yes. No drama, breakfast all eaten and ready to rock. Then another staff member was walking around calling “David”. At this point I started to ponder if that one was actually mine. Especially since I had talked with some other guy about the silly breakfast system. He ordered just after me in the queue but got his breakfast 10 minutes after me. Perhaps it was mine, perhaps not. I guess I’ll never know. Who knows how many people have grabbed other peoples breakfasts, how many people never paid, and how many people never got their breakfast. Next time I’ll use the name “Snoopy”. And it could all be resolved with a simple ticketting system which would cost a grand total of about $2.00 a day in tickets. Silliness really from a company raking in over $250k in ticket sales alone for a good day on the mountain.

Subaru Car Usability Goodness

Tue, 02 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000

With having an interest in usability it was good to find that someone had put some thought into the interior functions of my new Subaru Legacy GTB. Driving home the front window started fogging up (the interior had just been groomed so was still a little damp). I looked around for a button that had the front demister icon on it. I found it easily because it was pretty much the closest button to the driver on the center console. I pushed the button and it did all of the settings needed to demist the window and voila, I could see again. Fantastic - no more fussing around with the temperature, fan speed, and vents. Then when we picked up some fast food on the way home. I opened the drinks holder and put the drink in. I wondered why, when I pulled out the drinks holder, it swung away to the left. As soon as I needed to demist the window again I knew. They move just far enough to the left that you can still access the the demister button and the Auto and Off buttons for the climate air controls. Double fantastic. Small things like this give me a small fuzzy feeling inside. Much better than that frustrated feeling when something is completely hopeless to use.Well done Subaru, I might just yet be a Subbie convert yet - like just about all of the other people who I have talked to whom have owned them.

Buying a New Car

Sun, 31 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been looking to buy a new car for some time. The Civic SiR hatchback that I have is fantastic but it’s just too small. On too many occasions lately it’s been such a pain in the arse to move stuff around that I am splashing out and buying a Subaru Legacy GTB station wagon. I’m pretty pedantic when it comes to cars. My Honda Civic is probably one of the best examples of it’s kind in New Zealand. The interior is near on perfect and the exterior still looks great once it’s been washed. So, when hunting for a new car, it’s presentation was always going to be the deal breaker. I found over 12 cars on trademe.co.nz that matched my criteria (1996 - 1997, white, manual, reasonable kms, and in good condition). Good condition is just so hard to convey in a photo. Many of the cars that I eventually viewed looked fine in the photos on trademe but looked pretty average in real life. You can usually tell a lot about the life a car has had by the small things that people overlook. Yes, you need to have straight panels, a flawless interior and all that other big stuff, but you also need to look at the small stuff. Grooming of cars these days makes this harder since years and years of gunk can be steam cleaned away - they don’t get everything though. For example, car groomers will often miss areas where a car fanatic would always keep clean. They’re only getting ~$140 to clean the car so they aren’t going to try to get it back to showroom cleanliness. They’re just going to clean it enough that only the most stringent purchaser is going to notice. Bits that they might miss or do quickly are areas like the painted bits on the inside of doors. If these aren’t clean, then chances are the car never really got a regular clean by the owner. Also, the painted area around all the door hinges (don’t forget the boot) can be a good indicator. If these areas have just had a once over by the groomer there will still be cruft in the bits that a quick wipe can’t reach. Other things to look for are superficial parts that have gone rusty. One of the cars I looked at was pretty good except that it had heavy rusting of things like the window wipers, the ends of the rear gas struts (which hold up the boot), and the small clips on the front bumper where the number plate would be attached. Perhaps this isn’t a big deal, but if small components like this are heavily rusted then it’s likely to have lived in a reasonably harsh environment, i.e. in some seaside town in Japan. Look carefully to see whether the exhaust is rusted out anywhere with problems like this. Moving on, I eventually found a likeable dealer with a car that was in really good condition. I payed more that I was oringinally intending too, but I’d spent several days worth of time looking at average cars that I wouldn’t be happy with long term in the price range I wanted. Actual purchase price isn’t really the main issue with cars these days anyway. I’ll own the car for 3+ years in which time I’ll probably put in over $7k worth of petrol, $5k worth of insurance and weeks and weeks of time spent driving. Spending an extra $1k or $2k for the car that I really wanted wasn’t really that big of an issue for me. It almost seems like fate that I was supposed to buy the car. I’d found one in the morning that had great potential that was more than I wanted to spend so I said I would carry on looking. I then went to another dealer that had one in poor condition, and then onto this dealer. I was looking at the GTB they had advertised when they mentioned they had another one just arrived. Seemed too good to be true: great condition, good mileage, new tires, tints, Recaro drivers seat (the standard seats don’t have very good lumber support and not as bigger bolsters as I would like), twin air bags, and they were willing to do the cambelt change. After a bit of haggling (which I’m not great at) we ended up with a price that we were both happy with. Sign some forms, pay a hefty deposit and voila, I can stop spending time looking for a new car. So, with a brand new car (well, second hand really) on the way all I have to do is decide what to do with the Honda… At this stage I’m leaning towards spending a little bit of cash on it to do some club days at Pukekohe Raceway.

Using Rsync to backup files

Sun, 17 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Rsync is an open source utility that provides fast incremental file transfer. Rsync uses the Rsync algorithm which provides a very fast method for synchronizing remote files. It does this by sending just the differences in the files.Rsync is developed by the same folk that constructed Samba, which provides file and print services to all manner of SMB/CIFS clients, including the numerous versions of Microsoft Windows operating systems (whilst quietly beating the pants off the native Windows implementation in terms of transfer rate). I’ve been looking for a decent file backup mechanism for some time. The Windows Backup Utility is hopeless to use and is slow as pies. Rsync provides a relatively easy way to quickly backup and archive files. Below are the steps to follow to get yourself to the point where you can easily synchronize files.

Today is a good day

Sat, 02 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Some days just seem fantastic. Today was, and will hopefully continue to be one of those days. I woke up after a nice 9 hour sleep and it was beautiful and sunny outside. I didn’t have any preconceived plans for the day so took stock of all the things on my personal todo list.. I hadn’t been to the gym for a while, but didn’t want to drive to the gym since it is near work in town. So I decided to go for a walk and do the exercise trail at nearby Craigavon park. The walk to the park was great. Sunny day with no clouds and that nice brisk winter chilled air around. All good. Did the exercise trail without any drama so the gym must be helping. And then when I got home the house felt much warmer than it normally would. That must be the great new HRV home ventilation system that was just put in - excellent. Then a quick protein shake and snooze in the sun in the bedroom. Nothing beats a snooze in the sun… Then out for shopping to pick up a few small things. Found everything I wanted and some other things that I had been looking for a while but hadn’t found. Magic. Then home and my brother turned up for some help with his car. Setting the ignition timing. That all went smoothly. And now the house is a toasty 18 degrees after having the 22+ degree air from the roof circulating through it. Now to do some painting in the kitchen before Shelly gets home so it looks like I have at least done something productive for the day. Somedays you just need to chill out and not doing anything significant. Today was one of those days. Luverly juberly.

It's my birthday

Mon, 06 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Yay, I think. 28 years old now. Only 2 years until 30. Many years ago I had all these grand plans that I wanted to have accomplished by the time I was 30. Now there’s only 2 years left and there’s still some pretty big ones that haven’t been crossed off…

Learning computers for the first time

Mon, 06 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0000

My parents have just got a computer for the company business. Dad has used a computer before and can work his way around the internet pretty well. However, mum has never used one before and basically sat in front of one for the first time yesterday. She has been doing some free computer courses at the local town center, but only a couple, and she doesn’t really seem to have taken all that much in yet. It was really interesting to see how she thought some things should work. I have set up mum with a Gmail account so she can use email anywhere she might want to. That, and it’s got a pretty good user interface - or so I thought. However, for someone who has never really used a computer before nothing was all that obvious. For example, the Gmail user interface isn’t all that good when you want to create an email. They have used the term “Compose email”, but who on earth calls it/says that? Perhaps “Create new email” or something would be clearer. Also, once she got the hang of sending an email to one person I asked “Now how would you create an email that you wanted to send to me and Mary (my sister)”. Curiously she started typing “David and Mary”. It seemed so obvious at the time, but unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be anything in the computing world that works that obviously. Mum also had all sorts of problems working with the cursor and getting it to where she wanted to type things. She used to type when she was younger so I thought it would come more easily than it did. Nevermind, she’ll get it in the end. Also, I told them to have a look at the Windows XP Tour. Running through the “XP Basics” course it started off well talking about minimising and maximising windows. Then it just wandered off into networking and printers and hardware and stuff and I could see mum just glazing over and wondering what on earth this scary piece of plastic was going to mean to her. There’s just so many things you take for granted in the computing world, like what an email is, for example.

Finally got the phone back

Tue, 03 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

We’ll I’ve finally got my phone back. It’s only been 5 weeks give or take! Pretty silly really. I mean how long should it take to repair a broken microphone. Scheesh!

What makes good software

Tue, 03 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000

It’s not a question that really has a concrete answer. However, one thing that makes good software is how well it handles situations where things don’t really go to plan. Having just got my phone back I needed to put all of the contacts back onto the phone. I do (or try to do) this using the Nokia PC Suite application that you can freely download from the Nokia site. This software is a pretty poor excuse for phone synchronization software, but other software isn’t really all that much better. Anyway, I tried to synchronize the contacts from the Windows address book and got a very nice error message “An unspecified error has occured”. Thanks, that’s really useful. Turns out that the phone was configured to use the SIM card memory only, and when I tried to change it to use SIM and phone memory it said it the phone memory was locked. How any typical user is likely to figure that out is beyond me. Come on Nokia, you build the phones, you build the software, at least get them to work together in some remotely useable fashion.

I just want a mobile phone, not a camera

Sat, 23 Apr 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Why does every mobile phone these days come with a digital camera? The photos I have seen them produce are pretty poor - definitely no where near the quality of a typical digital camera, even with the 1.3 mega pixel varieties. Consider one typical use case. You’re out at night with your mates and you’ve had a few beers. At some point someone’s probably going to want to take a photo just because they can. Problem is you’re out at night and there’s no flash on the camera and the only light is the dim corner light in the pub an eternity away. Oh, and did I mention that it’s dark. You probably can’t really see clearly yourself so you probably don’t have much hope of seeing what your pointing at using the LCD. Anyway, it seems that I am the minority on this subject (otherwise every camera wouldn’t have a digital camera). Plenty of people seem to like taking photos of friends (during the daylight hours) and having that photo show up when that person calls. Quite nice, but I don’t think I would bother and would simply rather have a cheaper, smaller, lighter mobile phone that did what phones are meant to do - let you contact people, and let other people contact you. Nokia have a few cool phones coming out that don’t have camera’s, but they also don’t have some of the other features that I would like. Currently I have a Nokia 6100, which is the bees nees except it’s slow and that’s getting really frustrating. The up and coming Nokia 6030 looks like my next phone candidate, or perhaps I’ll move over to Sony. Probably not, because I like the fact that with Nokia phones you can easliy replace the cover if it gets damaged.

The perfect mobile phone - please read Nokia

Sat, 23 Apr 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Here is my list for the perfect mobile phone. Hopefully Nokia stumble across this and create the “Just for David” Nokia.

MUST haves

Alarm clock - a must if away travelling
Countdown timer - the one on our stove is broken
Colour screen - it just seems nicer
Small - it’s got to fit in the jeans pocket without a problem.
Changeable covers - for those unlikely occasions where it decides to take a joy ride down the concrete driveway.
Calendar - it’s got to be able to remind me of meetings when I’m at work and away from my desk.
Synchronization with Outlook - that’s what we use at work. Either Infrared or Bluetooth for the Synchronization - I already have an Infrared adaptor at work and Infrared on my laptop at home. I also have Bluetooth in my laptop.
Good synchronization software - I don’t like using unuseable things.
Good phone editting software - I don’t want to update everything on the phone using the phone.
Good synchronization with Windows Address Book (WAB) - because I don’t have Outlook at home.
Good stand-by time - because I don’t like charging the phone all the time.
At least one good standard ring-tone - because I don’t want to do the whole polyphonic thing, I just want to choose a discrete yet cool ring-tone.
It’s got to be easy to navigate around the phone - I am really starting to dislike the whole Nokia standard scrolling menu. You don’t know what is next and you can’t remember where you just were. There’s enough real estate so move with the times and do the 4 way scroll thing (most new phones have this).
Predictive text - because when I have to send an SMS I hate doing it. The faster the better.
Vibrating alert - because you can’t hear a phone ring when there’s lots of noise about.

NICE to haves

MP3 player - might start taking the train to work and it would be good to be able to listen to music without having to carry along an MP3 player as well.
Predictive text auto word completion - why has no-one done this? PDAs do this as you scribble on the pad. There’s enough screen real-estate to do this on most phones now so why not. Might add more as I think of them…

What's the point of Vodafone phoneInsure?

Sat, 16 Apr 2005 00:00:00 +0000

A couple of weeks back the microphone on my phone just simply died. I have Vodafone phoneInsure with my phone for just such a case. Or so I thought, seems I didn’t read the fine print though because I have been royally screwed by them thus far. Firstly Vodafone phoneInsure isn’t anything to do with Vodafone. My phone died on Easter Friday so I went into a Vodafone retailer. They said they couldn’t do anything since Vodaphone phoneInsure were on holiday for the long weekend (and every weekend) and they can’t access anything on their network to lodge the claim. That’s just ridiculous! Then I filled out the Vodafone phoneInsure form and faxed it off to them on Tuesday morning after Easter Monday. I then called them 3 hours after faxing it off to see if anything had happened with it. I hadn’t filled in the mobile phone number on the form because it was under the section saying “contact details”. My phone was poked so I left that off. Seems that section is actually used to figure out the account number or something. Why is crappy usability just about everywhere? Anyway they just left the form lying around rather than calling me on the business number that I had filled in to get the phone number they needed. Anyway, I eventually got the claim number and my girlfriend dropped it into Digital Mobile (a Vodafone retailer) with the claim number. She had to fill in some other form and they took the phone. 4 days later I hadn’t heard anything so I went into Digital Mobile on the Saturday. They still had the phone there! Why hadn’t it been sent somewhere to get fixed I pondered. It seems that since there was a phoneInsure claim number they assumed that the phone was simply going to be replaced. It was just a broken microphone so I was sure that was going to be less than the excess of $125! Digital Mobile also mentioned that I should have heard something from Vodafone phoneInsure within 48 hours of lodging the claim (which I hadn’t). So I called up Vodaphone to figure out what the process is supposed to be and it turns out they mail out the claim information, which I never got at work. What shabby customer service. At least they should call and check that it had been received. Email would have been faster as well. On Monday I called up Vodaphone phoneInsure and they said that the claim had been denied because it wasn’t caused by impact or liquid damage. So basically I have been paying $7 a month and need to pay a $125 excess just incase I fall into the pool with my phone or smash it on the ground. Just to make things worse, when I took it back to Digital Mobile to get repaired they said it was going to take 10 days to repair. 10 days later they called and said it wasn’t going to be covered by Nokia under warranty since it was purchased 13 months ago. Dammit! So now it is costing $108 dollars to repair (which was less than the excess anyway) and I still won’t get it for another 3 business days. By the time I get it back I will of not had a phone for over 3 weeks. What a pain in the arse. Perhaps it would have been easier to buy a whole new phone!

Painting is actually only 20% painting

Sun, 10 Apr 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve done my fair share of painting/renovation to date. Most of this has simply been re-painting in order to make things look more modern or, more commonly, just less old or less crappy (that’s a highly technical painting term). This is why the kitchen cabinets are being done at the moment. The old painting is pretty average, which translates to complete rat-shit. There are runs everywhere and the surface wasn’t prepped first so it peels off in strips if it gets knocked. Only 20% of the time spent painting is actually spent physically painting though. This is unfortunate since its the only part that is remotely enjoyable. The rest of the time is spent doing mundane stuff like stripping the old paint (particularly unmotivating), sanding back the old paint (particuarly boring), filling holes (not too bad), filling gaps (at least you get to play with a calking gun), resanding (at least this doesn’t take long) and so on. Anyway, I’ve just finished putting on the first sealer/primer coat on one side of the cabinets so most of the mundane part is over. Yay!

Creating physical things is so satisfying

Sat, 09 Apr 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I work in the software business. The fruits of your labour is a CD that contains an installer, some documentation, and ultimately users interacting with nothing more than different coloured pixels on a computer monitor. It seems so … um … un-real. If you turn off the monitor, poof, it all goes away. There’s nothing to hold, feel the weight of, push or click or turn to get things done. Lately I’ve been working on repainting our kitchen and, although the work is somewhat laborious, at the end of it there will be a beautiful kitchen to be admired every time I go into the kitchen. You’ll actually be able to see the blood, sweat and tears (not literally luckily) that went into the transformation. It makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside to think that you were able to, and did, do that work to create something real. At the same time during the repainting I’ve often thought how frustrating it is to do all the repetitve bits and pieces. For example, there’s three doors that I am working on at the moment. Once I’ve finished one it would be nice to just go Ctrl-C, then Ctrl-V twice. Perhaps that’s why I stay in the software business because the repitive nature of physically creating things is just not my cup of tea.

Instructions on how to set the idle on a Honda Civic

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Setting the idle correctly on a Honda Civic (or any Honda) is very important. If the idle is not set correctly the car will either idle too low, or it will idle too high causing the idle to surge up and down.

Warm the car up to operating temperature. This is generally determined when the radiator fan turns on when the car is stationary.
Unplug the IACV valve on the back of the intake manifold. This step needs to be done since the IACV valve is what the ECU uses to dynamically control the idle by allowing more or less air to bypass the throttle plate. Be careful not to burn yourself!
Set the idle to 600rpm using the idle control screw. This screw controls the static amount of air that bypasses the throttle plate.
Turn the car off and plug in the IACV valve.
Reset the ECU. This needs to be done because the ECU will have thrown an ECU error code.
Restart the car. The idle should be running nice and close to 750rpm.

If you can’t adjust the throttle down to 600rpm with the IACV valve unplugged too much air is getting past the throttle plate. Check the adjustment of the throttle stop to make sure that the throttle plate is closing enough. If it is closing enough, check that the throttle plate isn’t worn letting air past. If you can’t get the idle to work properly then check that the voltage of the throttle position sensor is correct. It should read 0.5V when the throttle is closed and 4.5V at WOT. This is not easy to test. Refer to your Honda Service Manual for instructions. There are numerous other gremlins which can cause problems with your idle. Check on other Honda Forums if you’re having manic idling problems.

Usability in the Household

Mon, 27 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000

We have finally got an alarm installed at our place after being robbed some months ago. It was interesting to see that the introduction in the manual contained the following statement:

Programming simplicity and speed were some of the major considerations and we believe that our objectives in this area were more than satisfied.

By all counts the alarms is pretty easy to use with consistent use of tones and buttons to achieve the variety of tasks that it can perform. The manual is also laid out well enough that you can find out what you need to know. There is some terminology that isn’t clearly defined though. The manual is also a printed/photocopied booklet that is stapled together at the spine. These booklets are almost impossible to flick through because the pages at the right hand side stick out by different amounts. This can be easily remedied with a guilotine though. It’s good to see a company that is actively considering usability during the design phase. Unfortunately the purchasing decision was only loosely based on design (we wanted an alarm with a small keypad as opposed to a silly large one). The first considerations were a reliable well established company, price, no monitoring contract and general features. Just goes to show that design alone doesn’t get the sale.

Custom fabricated Mk1 Ford Escort 4-1 headers

Sat, 20 Nov 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Below is a link to a ~~Picasa Web~~ Google Photos Album that contains photos of the custom fabricated 4-1 headers for the race-preparred Ford Escort my father is putting together.

The dimensions for the headers came from Edgell Automotive who are doing the build up of the Lotus 1600 engine. All the primaries are an equal length and have been routed to clear the custom engine mounts and engine bay (since the engine is going to sit slightly more diagonally within the engine bay than standard). They are made out of mild steel mandrel bends and will be ceramic coated once they are complete. In particular, look at the pyramid in the intricate collector and the nice clean flow lines that should lead to some good scavenging and, hopefully, performance.

B16A Engine Swap

Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000

This page contains information about the B16A engine swap that my Honda Civic had done many years ago transforming it (albeit mildly) into a Honda Civic Hybrid. The donor engine was obtained from Dodson’s Autospares, a local importer/wrecker of used parts from Japan. The B16A engine is from a 1994 EG6 Honda Civic SiR (determined from the timestamp on the head).

The body shell for my EF9 Honda Civic SiR is in great condition. There is no rust anywhere and just the usual small dents down the sides due to inconsiderate drivers at shopping centers. Unfortunately the same could not be said for the engine. The original first generation B16A engine in the Honda was showing signs of weariness. It was going through oil at a rate much faster than I would have liked. Sometimes I would forget to check the oil level every now and, when I did, I would be lucky to find any oil on the end of the dipstick. Far, far from ideal!

B16A Reference

Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000

This page contains reference information for Honda B series engines. Honda introduced the first B series VTEC engine in the Japan Domestic Market (JDM) in the form of the B16A in 1989. The mass-produced normally aspirated engine managed to break 100hp/liter - 160 horsepower from 1.6 litres of displacement. The B16A has since been a benchmark for all 1.6 litre engines and has been continued in production since 1989 and is still used today in the high performance line up of Honda’s.

Bonnet Spacers

Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000

To reduce the temperature underneath the bonnet I tried raising the back of it to let some of the hot air escape. Quite a few cars at the drags employ this trick. I used a Cable Free Indoor/Outdoor Thermometer to measure the temperature difference caused by raising the rear of the bonnet and the results were unexpected.

Fabrication

Putting in bonnets spacers is reasonably straight forward. First you need to make some spacers to fit underneath the bonnet hinges and then install them. I have seem some people use a number of stacked washers as spacers, but a proper mounting plate spacer distributes the load much more evenly.

Bonnet Vents

Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000

The new headers that were installed during the B16A engine swap generate a lot more heat than the stock exhaust manifold and heatshield.

In another attempt to reduce the temperature underneath the bonnet I tried installing some bonnet vents into my Honda Civic SiR to remove some of the excess heat.

Choosing Bonnet Vents

Finding bonnet vents that would suit the Honda Civic SiR was very difficult. More difficult than I would have thought given the increasing import scene in New Zealand. Many local shops sold cheap fiberglass Mazda GTR lookalike bonnet vents. I found other bonnet vents that were similar in design to the Mazda GTR ones, but most of them required a large hole to be cut in the bonnet, which is then covered with a badly made fiberglass surround and aluminium mesh. That seemed a bit silly because you might as well just have cut a hole in the bonnet. The gaping hole probably wouldn’t help the aerodynamics and the would allow all sorts of stuff (like rain) to get directly into the engine bay.

Custom Headers

Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000

This page contains information about the creation of some custom 4-2-1 headers for the second generation B16A in my Honda Civic SiR. This was brought about after the decision to do a B16A Engine Swap. The stock cast iron manifold looks somewhat restrictive even though it is rumoured to flow quite well. The cast iron exhaust manifold is also very heavy, so just removing it and replacing it with an equivalent header that weighed much less would have some performance benefits.

Dyno Plots

Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000

This page displays the dyno runs that my 1990 JDM Honda Civic SiR has had. At the moment there have only been two dyno sessions. I wish I had done more prior to some of the modifications to see what modification have and haven’t worked. The seat of the pants dyno has always registered an improvement but the seat of the pants dyno is known to be inconsistent…

All of the B16A dyno runs have been 4th gear sweeps on the ATEC rolling road dyno at Shore Performance & Parts.

EF9 Fuse Panel Translation

Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000

EF9 Fuse Panel Translation

This page contains the Japanese to English fuse panel translation for an EF9 Honda Civic SiR. One of the people at Work speaks and can read Japanese. So a big thanks to Phillip Barlow for the translation that appears below.

Japanese Version - English Translation - European Fuse Panel

Japanese Version

The picture below is a scanned version of the Japanese fuse panel. Apparently the Japanese found on the fuse panel is typical of most Japanese to Western European conversions. The characters that appear are actually the Japanese phonetics for the English version of the words. This is kind of similar to the phonetic descriptions seen next to words in most English dictionaries, except using Japanese characters. For example, the translation for radio might sound something like rajio from the Japanese phonetic symbols.

Honda B16A ECU Error Codes

Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000

The table below lists the ECU error codes that can be thrown by a Honda B16A ECU. These codes have been copied directly from a Honda Service Manual. I can’t remember which year Honda it was for, but I think it was for a 5th generation Honda Civic.

These error codes are very useful for determining the cause of any problems that you may have, for example after doing a B16A Engine Swap, Ford XF Throttle Body Swap or for general maintenance purposes.

Honda Gearbox Ratios

Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Honda Gearbox Ratios

This page contains the gearbox ratios that can be found in all of the different JDM (Japan Domestic Market) B series transmissions. It also details whether or not the transmission is available with an LSD (limited slip differential).

JDM Honda Gearbox Ratios

Code	S80	Y21/Y80/S80/S4C	S80/Y80	Y1	YS1	S1/J1
Car	JDM Integra Type R 98+ (LSD)	JDM 96-97 Integra R (LSD)JDM Civic R [EK9] (LSD)JDM Civic SiR [EK4, EG6] (optional LSD)	JDM SiR-G (optional LSD)	JDM CRX/Civic SiR [EF8, EF9] (optional LSD)	JDM 92-93 XSi Integra (optional LSD)	JDM 90-91 Integra XSi [DA-6]
Type	Hydraulic	Hydraulic	Hydraulic	Cable	Cable	Cable
1st	3.230	3.230	3.230	3.166	3.307	3.230
2nd	2.105	2.105	1.900	2.052	2.105	2.105
3rd	1.458	1.458	1.360	1.416	1.458	1.458
4th	1.034	1.107	1.034	1.103	1.107	1.107
5th	0.787	0.848	0.787	0.870	0.880	0.848
Reverse	3.000	3.000	3.000	3.000	3.000	3.000
Final Drive	4.785	4.400	4.400	4.266	4.400	4.400

You can use any B-series transmission (cable or hydraulic) with any B-series block as long as you make sure that you use the correct clutch, flywheel, and intermediate shaft.

Known Honda Problems

Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Known Honda Problems

This page contains some of the known problems with Honda Civics that I have personally run into. Some of these problems aren’t well known to those outside the Honda community so your local mechanic could spend days trying to find some of these.

Main Fuel Relay - Vehicle Speed Sensor - Oxygen Sensors

Main Fuel Relay

This Honda Civic problem was potentially the most frustrating problem I have ever had with a car, period. Basically the Main Fuel Relay that controls power to the fuel pump stops giving it power at what appears to be completely random times. This is supposedly cause by cold solder cracks in the PCB. When I eventually found out that this problem existed the mechanic at the time opened the relay up to have a look and everything looked fine. We still replaced it though and that fixed the problem.

Links

Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Links

Honda B16A - The VTEC Legend Specifications for all of the B16A engines including the US models. Dyno plots from lots of B16A engines with various modifications. Information about swapping various bits from the B18C engines to the B16A.

Hybrid Honda Contains loads of information about hybrid Hondas. Just about everything you need to know to about swapping something from another Honda to your Honda.

Hybrid Honda Forum Forums where people will assist you with any questions you have about your hybrid Honda (part of Hybrid Honda).

Photos

Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Photos

This page contains some of the photos that I have taken of the 1990 JDM EF9 Honda Civic SiR using my new (well it was at one point) fan dangled digital camera.

Click on any of the photos for a larger image.

Exterior - Interior - Engine Bay

Exterior

Underhood Temperature Readings

Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Underhood Temperature Readings

One of the cheapest ways to increase engine horsepower is to make the intake charge cooler. A cooler intake charge is more dense and, therefore, contains more oxygen per unit of volume. More oxygen generally means more power and thus having colder air entering the engine is desirable.

There are several ways to decrease the intake charge temperature because there are several places where the intake charge can get heated before entering the combustion chamber. The first is by actually sucking in hot air from the engine bay. The rest of the heating of the intake charge occurs as it travels up the intake, through the throttle body, through the intake manifold and finally into the combustion chamber. By reducing the temperature of any of these pieces you reduce the amount of heat that the intake charge absorbs on it’s way to the cylinders.

Digital Mobile New Lynn Customer Service

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Isn’t it strange how some shops seems to have appalling customer service but you can’t seem to pin down why. In this particular instance Digital Mobile in New Lynn have well and truely rubbed me the wrong way. I think the main thing is that I get the impression they don’t give at rats arse about the customer. It appears that they either just want to sell you the most expensive mobile phone they can (with features that you don’t actually need) or in my case, they don’t seem to particularly care that your phone is broken, which is going to be a real PITA for you. The other day I was waiting to be served (to eventually find out that nothing had been done with my broken phone) and I overhead a salesman talking with a prospective phone purchaser. In this case it was a girl that seemed to be about late college age. The salesman basically said something along the lines of “you need this phone because it has all the features you could ever need. It’s got bluetooth integration so you can get (i.e. spend more money) a cordless bluetooth headset and walk around with the phone in your pocket and keep talking.” From the blank expression on the girl’s face she didn’t appear to know what bluetooth was and would likely never need to walk around talking with the phone in her pocket wearing a silly little headset over her ear. Hopefully she didn’t pay the $900+ for the phone he was showing her and got something that would do all that she ever likely needed it to.

The best way to manage podcasts on an iPod

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

While updating my iPod this evening I ran into a better way to manage podcasts. It’s so simple I don’t know why I didn’t do this when I first started using the podcast smart playlist hack to get podcasts to play nicely on the iPod. The original smart playlist hack was done because there are a couple of problems with standard podcast synchronisation and playing behaviour on an iPod.

First, as soon as you start listening to a podcast (or anything I believe) it is marked as played. So, synchronizing non-played podcasts doesn’t work very well because I often loose what I was part way through listening. To combat this I have previously configured my iPod Nano to synchronise only checked podcasts so I can actively remove podcasts that I have actually finished listening to off the iPod.