Chris Carey

I wanted a simple way to make my Linux security camera server stream live video to my TV.

The server ususally runs “motion”. I disable motion, and launch this command on the server:

vlc v4l:/dev/video0:size=640×480:channel=1:norm=ntsc:fps=12 –sout ‘#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,vb=768,scale=1}:duplicate{dst=std{access=mmsh,mux=asfh,dst=:8080}}’ -v –noaudio

and this on a Linux client to test:

mmsh://10.4.4.25:8081/

Then, once that is all working, I use VLC on the AppleTV to play the video to the TV. I used iScripts to get it launching.

The only problem I have right now is a 8 or so second delay.

I posted something on this a while back, and someone in the comments posted a great howto. I felt it is worthy of another link so it is easy to find. This basically lets your Linux box share files using the AFP protocol which is very fast and the native file sharing protocol for Mac OS X.

http://www.kremalicious.com/2008/06/ubuntu-as-mac-file-server-and-time-machine-volume/

This person built a DEB package for modified netatalk which works on Ubuntu Ibex:

http://gpz500.wordpress.com/2008/09/27/lairone-al-servizio-del-leopardo/

My brother is in Japan and he just got a shiny new MacBook Air.
We tried to screen share with iChat so I could help him set it up. His Internet provider must be firewalled in some way that just flat out made iChat fail. No video chat and no screen sharing.

I searched Google and found a free app that got screen sharing working. It’s called TeamViewer. The software was easy to use, responsive (even from Utah to Japan), and free. Link below.

TeamViewer

For some reason, if you go to the Utah DMV website and click “Address Changes”, it sends you to this web page: http://dmv.utah.gov/contact.html

However if you look on this page, there is no way to change your address ONLINE.

A little googling turns up this other site where you can do it. A hell of a lot more convenient than driving in to the DMV.

https://secure.utah.gov/dlr/

Here is a trick to stop the iPhone from autocorrecting your favorite curse words:

Create a contact with a name that contains only curse words.

The iPhone will actually HELP YOU type these words now since contacts are at a higher priority with autocorrect.

Here is a little trick to get phpinfo() information on the fly.

You need php-cli installed (sometimes its called php4-cli or php5-cli)


echo "<?php phpinfo(); ?>" | php4
echo "<?php phpinfo(); ?>" | php5
echo "<?php phpinfo(); ?>" | php5-cli


etc

You can also tack on a | grep at the end if you want to filter for certain words.

Here is a link I found that got this working again:
Click Here

Here is a link to fix a keyboard error some have:
Click Here

Fixed System Preferences.app on Take 2:

You have to copy PreferencePanes.framework from your Tiger disks. Copy them to /System/Library/Frameworks/

This is going to lead the way to me getting the Ethernet port sharing Internet over to the XBOX. So I can get rid of the extra unneeded WiFi box under the TV.

XBMC on AppleTV is fantastic. It’s polished. It’s stable. It just works.
Boxee was a bit too Alpha quality at this time. The social aspect of it is a bit more scary than useful.
I’m not going to do a huge writeup on the features of each of these applications. I just want to say that XBMC is fantastic and it’s my new favorite app on AppleTV.

I tried PdaNet for the first time today. It worked great.

On your PC you create an ad-hoc wireless network. On the iPhone you connect to the ad-hoc network, and launch PdaNet. Now you can surf on your laptop. Yes, it is that easy.

You don’t have to set up proxies on the phone or the laptop. This is the easiest tethering tool ever.

PdaNet is installable through Cydia