Robert Small, The blog thereof.

I think most people who’ve been following the iPlayer in any depth have noticed that it’s not really delivering. It has some good sides, but there are a fair few things that I’d like to take issue with.

I would not say it’s been a complete waste of money, it hasn’t. It provides videos to anyone within a certain part of the desktop market’s spectrum. So, what’s bad about it? Primarily, you may not download the videos if you’re on anything other than Windows. Isn’t this government backing of a monopoly? Annoyingly the online viewing is only available for 6 days, and even if you do find that old XP disk you’ll only be able to keep the videos for 30 days. So much for asking your neighbours to download a year’s worth of East Enders for you while you’re off on that gap year in Tibet.

So, if you use Linux and you’re away from a computer for more than 7 days, tough.

It does provide some good quality video, the screen shot above shows a similar quality to what you’ll generally get. How much of a good thing is this though? If we dub this ‘high definition’, where’s the standard definition or low definition version for those of us on slower and more expensive connections?

Whatever codec they’re using (I haven’t researched, maybe someone can fill me in) seems to be quite high on the bandwidth usage. They also don’t seem to be using the standard method of scaling videos; normally videos will scale nicely to full screen on any of my computers (on youtube and the like), iPlayer doesn’t. I get skips, jumps, hops and judders if I try to full screen it. I’ve tested it on this machine (1.7GHz, 1GB), my other laptop (1.6GHz, 2GB), and my dad’s media machine (2x 2.6GHz, 2GB). All had problems.

It also has a habit of killing itself out of the blue. This generally manifests itself in one of several ways:

• ‘There has been a problem playing this video…’ This tends to happen when you walk away for a while and then come back.
• ‘Undefined undefined undefined’ This has only ever happened once, but I presume heavier users get it more often.
• The jitters. This is when suddenly everything goes jittery, something like a deliberate echo 0.5s after and at the same volume.
• The express joo-jars. An apt nickname for when it goes into super fast mode and does something weird with the sound.

In general it behaves, but I’ve noticed a few other distinct problems:

• Incomplete uploads. An absolute curse, generally it will finish just before the bit which finalises the whole program.
• Time delay. For some reason they seem to forget to upload half the days programs for a while, perfectly OK until you want to watch one which is missing.

All in all though, it’s not all bad. I’ll try a comparison with a competitor, ITV’s catchup.

Downloads: [BBC] Yes, only Windows and for 30 days. [ITV] No, or invisible.

Video quality: High, sharp and generally smooth. Nasty.

Adverts: None, just a channel trailer at the beginning. Lots.

Requirements: Flash and a browser. Internet Explorer, a ‘patched’ Windows Media Player, ActiveX.

Speed: Fast. Slow to start with then seems to be buffered and OK.

Watching live: No known mechanism. Possible, reasonable quality.

At the end of the day, does it let me watch Dr Who? Yes, therefore it can’t be all bad.

Kind regards, Robert.

http://www.robertsmall.org/wiki/index.php5?title=Chute_Stick#The_Software

Just a quick blog to say that I’ve added a few things to Chute Stick. I’ll thin down the number of packages as soon as possible, but we’re still well within the 1GB memory stick so I can spend time doing that later.

I’ve added all versions of Skype. Skype provides a reasonably secure method of getting a message to someone; it also permeates firewalls better than most viruses. I added 7zip as it seems to be a good free alternative to WinZip, the 7zip compression itself is remarkable. In some of my experiments with it I’ve experienced almost 50% smaller files than standard zip (using `zip -9`). Because of this excellent compression I’ve included a copy of p7zip (the *nix port). CamStudio may seem like a strange choice, but it does offer a way for you to quickly record a video of how to do something, this could be essential if you’re unable to tutor someone face to face but need them to (for example) administer a box for you. I’ve debated if a Linux desktop recorder is needed, but if you have ssh you can probably do most administration through that.

Well, that’s all so far, I’m snowed under with work at the moment so I was just popping this through. Most of the additions have been related to things I’ve needed for work over the last few days. I will be blogging about some other things (mostly work related) soon, when I escape anyway!

Kind regards, Robert.

http://www.robertsmall.org/wiki/index.php5?title=Chute_Stick#The_Software

Just to mention that I’ve now released a list of the software I currently have on my pen drive.

 http://www.robertsmall.org/wiki/index.php5?title=Chute_Stick#The_Software

I will provide more information on each item in the near future including versions and links. I expect a few of you are thinking of cloning my setup until I release a script.

Kind regards, Robert

Some of you will already know about this little project that I’ve been working on. Basically I’m producing a USB memory stick with all the things which I think it needs. Quoting the wiki page:

http://www.robertsmall.org/wiki/index.php5?title=Chute_Stick

If you’re in a situation where you only have one memory stick, what’d you want on it? If baggage handling lose all your bags and you just have the encrypted hard drive in your jacket pocket and the memory stick round your neck, what do you want on the stick?

You’re stranded on an island (or somewhere with a really poor internet connection) and you want to acquisition a computer for your own uses, what do you want on your stick? Someone else on the island wants you to fix their computer, what do you want on the stick?

In general, what do you want on a memory stick when you don’t trust or want to use your internet connection? This is what the Chute Stick project is meant to provide.

Although there are many different situations where this may be of use and some of them wont require most of the software provided this is meant to be an ‘in any event evacuation plan’. I know a lot of you have already contacted me about this and so there probably wont be that many comment; however, there are several things which I’d love to be posted here:

• Situations where you might need a rescue stick.
• Software suggestions/requests.
• Things to stay away from.
• Suggestions for replacement software, I know I may not have picked the right stuff all the time.
• Suggestions about ways of packaging or unpacking software.
• Ways to make things more accessible to more people.

Of course you could just tell me I’m doing something useful!

Which brings me to another point, what am I doing? Well I don’t intend to distribute too much software, I’d prefer to write a script which downloads and updates software to a memory stick for you. Much of the software I’m looking at is either not free/libre and so I don’t expect to be able to do more than provide a script to get the end user to download and use the software correctly. If anyone is familiar with the gentoo ebuild context they’ll understand more of what I mean, my script wouldn’t require pre-built packages but do it’s own work.

The wiki page is: http://www.robertsmall.org/wiki/index.php5?title=Chute_Stick

Kind regards, Robert.

Another BottleCap release candidate, this one is Windows compatible out of the box. Just remember to edit bcsettings.py. Get the update and please report any bugs here.

Kind regards, Robert.

I’ve just uploaded another RC. I advise updating as it has a few bugfixes, especially if you’re on windows. Tonnes of work to make pylint happy and adding of docstrings, expect another release soon as I change and add things. I still have to fix the clones module but I’ve made the highlight ban code actually work.

Have fun, stay safe, and feel free to tell me if there’s anything wrong, remember to check the official channel for updates! irc.v8d.org #BottleCap

Kindest regards at this festive season, Robert Small.

This is laptop-centric, desktop users will have a far easier time in general.

I’ve just done my second hard drive replacement on a laptop, I’d never had cause to do them before and everyone who’d mentioned it had warned me it was laced with peril. It would seem that they were wrong. Both IDE* drives were replaced with relative simplicity, I’ll explain how.

You’ll need:

• A 2.5 inch IDE adapter or caddy.
• Cables which come with, usually USB.
• A blank CD.
• A dog, children, lunch, or similar distraction.

What I tested this with:

• Adapters/Caddies:
  • Generic IDE 2.5 inch caddy, USB power and data.
  • Generic SATA 2.5 inch caddy, USB power and data, only for a little data removal, no copying but should work just as well.
• Partition types:
  • ext2
  • ext3
  • linux swap (with resume image)
  • fat16
  • fat32
  • ntfs
• Operations:
  • Copy, paste.
  • Copy, paste and resize.
  • Standard checks.

So, firstly you want to burn a copy of the gparted livecd onto the CD. This CD contains the tools to do all the work we’re intending to do. Now you must take your old hard drive out of your laptop and put it in the caddy/adapter, don’t plug it in yet. Take the new hard drive and put it in your laptop, put the CD in the drive and boot to it.

You’ll be asked a few regional questions, answer them and wait for the gparted screen to show. When this shows plug in the caddy/adaptop and for some, turn it on. Tell gparted to refresh the devices, it’s under the first menu. In the right at the top of the window there’ll be a drop-down list of devices, select your external caddy (most likely the second).

At this point I should mention that when you’re copying data things might break, it’s unlikely but possible. Don’t blame me, blame Canada.

Simply right click the partitions you want to copy over (select copy) then select your new drive and paste them. When you do this you can actually resize them, a useful function as most likely you’re putting in a larger drive. Make your / or OS partition bootable using the flags dialog.

Windows users will probably want to use their install disk to ‘repair’ their installation, Linux users can chroot into their / partition and do a grub-install hd0 to create a new mbr.

There are ways to make this process slightly better/easier but I’m giving you the basics of a GUI based one for lazy people like myself, remember to read manuals and keep a computer with internet access nearby.

Kind regards, Robert.

* This process would be identical for SATA, just pick 2.5 inch SATA adapters insted of IDE.