Big Trev

I’ve now moved to tumblr. Almost everything of any value that was here has been copied there, but I’ll leave this here for now.

My new blog is http://big-trev.tumblr.com/

I have an avi file where the sync of the audio is OK at the start, and gets progressively out of sync.

Found this command to run - takes a little bit, but seems to have done the trick. I have no idea how it works!

mencoder -forceidx -oac copy -ovc copy outofsyncfile.avi -o outputfile.avi

(edit) - I may have pulled the trigger on this a little early… it didn’t work!

That said, I played the video with VLC, and there is an Adjustments and Effects dialog with a Synchronization tab, and you can adjust the sync there. I just needed to keep changing it through the video - it went from about 0.3 sec offset at 10 or 15 mins in, to 0.7 by 40 minutes. Not a lot, just enough to be REALLY annoying when people’s lips don’t match up to what they’re saying!

Finally decided to get around to setting up QoS on my DD-WRT-flashed Linksys router.

I’m going to put my settings here for future reference, since I can never find any of the documentation I’ve done… And, this might help somebody.

There’s a bit of instruction here that I’m going to run through.

Firstly, get logged into the router, go to NAT/QoS, and the QoS tab.
I’ve set mine to HTB (the default, dunno what it is!), and WAN. I sync at about 7Mbps/1024kbps up, so I’ve entered 6000 down, and 900 up.
Optimise for gaming is ticked.
I’ve added the xbloxlive service, and set it to Premium
And bittorrent, and set it to Bulk, and Http to standard.

I’ll see how it goes!

There is also a bunch of info here on the DD-WRT wiki.

I’ve decided to get my learn on, and learn a language. After random wanderings around the intertubes, countless advice against it and for it, I’ve decided to give Python a go. Given that I haven’t even decided what I want to do with it yet, what platform(s) (web, Linux, Windoze), I figure it’s enough of a “catchall” language to learn for starters.

I’ve started using the IDLE IDE, but I’m finding that’s not quite “slick” enough for me. Eclipse with the Pydev plugin seems to be recommended in a few spots, so I’m going to give that a go.

To install, I was originally reading some stuff that the version in the repos isn’t the “latest”, but after trying to do it manually I’ve hit Synaptic and it does have what seems to be the latest (3.5.1). I did get it sort of running before, but not with overwhelming success (couldn’t get pydev running).

So apt-get install eclipse should get you what you need (I used the GUI)

Installation instructions for the plugin are here.

(edit) - I’ve had a bit of a go through the information here, and while it looks good to use Eclipse, I think it’s a “walk before you run” kinda deal. Going to stick with IDLE for the moment while I’m still learning.

I’ve got a couple of Python books, but I’ve just stumbled across this that I’m going to keep here for safe-keeping!

http://www.awaretek.com/tutorials.html

Claims to be over 300 tutorials. I’m having a crack at using Eclipse with Pydev, which is apparently one of the better IDEs, but I’m struggling to get it going. There purports to be a tutorial here, about to give it a go.

Another little niggle. I have no sound on Youtube in Firefox. Usually not a big deal (I hardly watch Youtube vids - this hasn’t been working for MONTHS and I hadn’t noticed!).

Anyhoo, someone purports to have a fix. Lets see how this goes:

sudo killall pulseaudio

sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio

After doing the above, and restarting Firefox, I got my sound back!

There’s a new GRUB in town apparently, and since this is my first complete install of Karmic (9.10), it’s the first time I’ve really had to worry about it.

The other difference with this install is that usually GRUB sticks Ubuntu in the list before Windows so it’s the default, but this time I want Windows to be the default.

There’s a pile of good info here that I’m working through at the moment.

So here’s what I’m doing:
1. Open the file /boot/grub/grub.cfg in a text editor. It has a big scary warning not to edit it at the top, so don’t! Do a search for the OS you want to make the default, and copy the whole menu item. In my case, it’s "Microsoft Windows XP Professional (on /dev/sda1)"
2. Open the file /etc/default/grub in a text editor.
3. Find the line GRUB_DEFAULT=0.
4. Change it to GRUB_DEFAULT="{menu item}“. For example, mine is GRUB_DEFAULT="Microsoft Windows XP Professional (on /dev/sda1)"
5. Save the file.
6. In terminal, run update-grub. It’ll chug through, and re-detect everything.

and you should be done!

Grrrrr. Even free software companies can annoy the crap out of you sometimes.

My story is that my laptop’s mouse button is stuffed. It stays stuck on, or sometimes won’t work at all; either way, it’s borked.

Windows is pretty easy. Do the install using keyboard instead of mouse. Then install the Synaptics driver, go into Control Panel, and disable the touchpad. Easy!

Now, Ubuntu. From what I’ve read, you USED to be able to do the same thing. This is a feature which has inexplicably been taken out in 9.10! All you can do from the GUI is tick a box to disable the touchpad while you’re typing, that’s it.

So I’ve done a hunt around, and found this thread. The command to run is:

sudo modprobe -r psmouse

To turn it back on:

sudo modprobe psmouse

I still need to figure out how to turn it off permenantly.

I also have to figure out how to get the Wireless networking going, and see if I can get my 3G dongle going, but not tonight….

(Update!)
OK, found it. Install the app gpointing-device-settings (available through the main repos).

This does what Ubuntu SHOULD do out of box. Just go in there, and disable the touch pad. Done and done!

(Update again)
OK, this wasn’t done.

I’ve now found this solution from this thread.

To ensure the target to blacklist does not affect anything else I use, such as my Logitech Nano USB mouse, I went into a terminal and typed:


sudo modprobe -r psmouse

If the touchpad does not work, while your preferred mouse does, you’re on the right track. So the next thing I did was go into a terminal and type:

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Then add the following to the file:

# Prevent TOUCHPAD from loading
blacklist psmouse

So a snippit of my blacklist.conf file looks like:

# these drivers are very simple, the HID drivers are usually preferred
blacklist usbmouse
blacklist usbkbd

# Prevent TOUCHPAD from loading
blacklist psmouse

Save the blacklist.conf file and reboot your machine, and all should be well.

I hope this helps others and provides that persistent solution they are looking for.

After years (literally!) of putting up with not having a decent keylock on Windows Mobile, I’ve finally decided to seek out an app to handle this. I have problems, esp. on the motorbike, with pocket dialling if someone sends me a text or calls me while it’s in my pocket.

I’m giving this a go: http://www.ac-s2.com/

There’s a pile of configuration you can do, but I’ve pretty much left it on defaults, and it does what it says it will on the wrapper: locks the screen and you have to slide to unlock it!

After seeming all too easy, I have hit a snag with Karmic. Although I like that it seemed to setup OK by default, the sound quality is awful - it’s like a sort of metallic tinny sound, like a tiny pimple speaker being over-driven.

Found a similar problem reported here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1295266

Looks like there’s a few people around with similar issues. For starters, I’m installing the gnome-alsamixer, which enables a bit more things to tinker with. I’ve had a look at this, and it wasn’t much use.

Found this page here https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshooting

aplay -l
turned up about what you’d expect, so it looks like it’s detecting the sound card OK.

And after reading a bunch of stuff, turns out all I needed to do was pull some of the sliders down from 100%! Go through and for all the PCM sliders, put them at about 80%.

Never a dull moment with this Linux stuff….