Looking for TV Software

digitaleagle MythTV, Ubuntu, Uncategorized Leave a comment

After having some sound issues with my TV Laptop, I am looking to reinstall with the latest version of Ubuntu.  It is past due for an upgrade! Here are some options that I found:

What I have is an old laptop where the hinge broken on the screen.  Everything works except it isn’t portable.  So, I turned it into an entertainment system.  MythTV has worked very well so far.  I have been able to hook in Hulu’s Desktop application and you wouldn’t know it isn’t a TV.  Plus, I have been able to put our home videos and some other video into the library, and it works great.

I am looking for a better front end interface.  It works good enough now, but I wouldn’t mind something that might iron out some of these issues.  If you have any thoughts or have used any of the tools, please comment.

Resources

More Avidemux Settings

digitaleagle How To, Uncategorized Leave a comment

I tried my memcoder trick to concatenate/combine my flash videos, and it didn’t work this time for some reason.  It gave this error message.

All video files must have identical fps, resolution, and codec for -ovc copy.

Exiting...

So, I tried avidemux:

Again, you can open the first .flv file. Then, you use the Append option in the File menu to add the rest of the videos. These are the options that I found to save it:

How To: Copy a Joomla Menu

digitaleagle Joomla, Uncategorized Leave a comment

I wanted to keep a copy of the way a menu was before I made changes. I wish there was a duplicate option, but this what how I found you can do it:

From the menu manager, create a new menu with the New button:

Then, set the properties for your new menu:

After saving and closing, open the menu you want to copy by clicking on the link:

Next, click on the check box at the top to select all the menu items:

Now, at the bottom, choose “Add to this menu” for the new menu that you created.  Choose copy for the option.  Finally, click process.

Once you click process, you should see the success message:

Now, you have a copy of your menu!

Sitemaps

digitaleagle Blogging, PHP, Uncategorized Leave a comment

I have been working with Google’s Webmaster Tools, and one of the things that it requires is a sitemap. It took me some tweaking to get it right, but here is what I learned.

First, I had to hand craft a sitemap php file for the main, parent site. The first thing that I struggled with was how to get the content type and XML heading in a php file. The solution was the header() command and to use the echo command.

Here is the heading of my sitemap page:

<?php
header("Content-Type: text/xml"); 

echo '<' . '?' . 'xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ' . '?' . '>' 
?>

The next hurdle was to determine how to include the last modified field. I found the filemtime() command could read the last time the file was changed. Then, the date() command using the DATE_W3C format puts it in the correct format that the sitemap expects.

Here is what an entry looks like.

  <url>
    <loc>http://digitaleagle.net</loc>
    <lastmod><? echo date (DATE_W3C, filemtime('index.html')) ?></lastmod>
    <priority>0.4</priority>
    <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
  </url>

Finally, I found a plugin that would generate the sitemap for the WordPress blogs. The plugin is called: “Google XML Sitemaps”:

This plugin adds a new settings page where you can configure different options regarding the sitemap:

I didn’t need to mess with any of the settings. I should have blogged this as I was doing it, but if I remember right, I had to visit this page the first time to generate the sitemap. From there, it takes over.

At the top of the settings, you can see stats such as when it last generated the XML. You can also force it to rebuild the sitemap.

Resources

Paying Attention to Licenses

digitaleagle Hacking, Interesting Articles, Open Source, Uncategorized Leave a comment

This article kind of caught my attention:

InfoWorld — Study: 70 percent of iPhone and Android open source apps violate licenses

The Open Source license isn’t the fun part of the project.  I like to be creative, and I like to see the program work.  Worrying about a license is the last thing I want to do, but it needs to be done.

So, here are some places to start researching:

I found a little bit of a checklist on this page under the section Applying the License, but I would like a better checklist specific to the Apache License 2.0.

Ahh! Spam, Your Killing Me!

digitaleagle Blogging, Uncategorized, Wordpress Leave a comment

After moving my blog, one of the problems is SPAM.  And, it seems like it is getting worse.  I get all kinds of spam comments, some advertising various things like iPhones and worse, but the most annoying are these unreadable ones.  These are like random letters or like someone just slid their hand across the keyboard.

Akismet

On WordPress.com, they offer Akismet as a spam filter.  It seemed to do a decent job, and now that I see what happens without it, I realize that I took it for granted.  What I didn’t realize was that it was a service.  The plugin came preinstalled on my new website, but to activate it, I had to sign up for an account on the Akismet site.

I have been reluctant to sign up because I am not sure that I want yet another service.  The cost would probably be minimal if not free, but my profits are minimal if not none.

GASP

A little search for an Akismet alternative turned up iBlogZone’s article about GASP.  GASP stands for Growmap Anti Spambot, and you can read more about it on the WordPress Plugin Site.

I like this option because it isn’t a service.  From what I can tell, it adds a few features to the form that will trick spambots.  First, it looks like it adds a checkbox via Javascript.  Because spambots don’t care about running Javascript, they will not be able to check the box and therefore not be able to comment.  Also, it adds a hidden field that a human would not be able to populate.  The spambot will not realize it is hidden, and that is a dead giveaway.

So, we’ll see how this option goes.

Solve Media

Another option that looked very interesting was Solve Media.  This idea is pretty cool.  They take a problem and end up making money off of it!

I read about it at iBlogZone’s article.  The idea is that you put a Captcha on your comment form.  In order to comment, you have to type the letters from the image, and they are designed so that a spambot could not decipher them.  The cool part about this implementation is that they incorporate an advertisement into it so that you earn money at the same time.

I think I am going to hold off on this option for now.  It is another service after all, and I don’t have enough legitimate comments at this point.