Legatissimo.info - Internet

iPhone remote for MythTV

kyle — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 10:38:40 -0500

Last weekend, I finally got my MythTV box up and running, thanks to the MythDora distribution. It works like a charm, but I was dismayed by the idea of having to sit near the computer to use the keyboard and not enthused by the idea of setting up drivers for a wireless keyboard. After a bit of research on the compatible remotes out there, I decided to build my own to run on my iPhone. Here it is in action:

After trying out a few options I settled on an HTML web front end with a little bit of AJAX, which makes calls to a python CGI script. These pieces are hosted on the MythTV server, and I access them through the iPhone's web browser over my local network via WiFi. The icons are from the Nuvola set. I have plans in the future to replace them with icons that are more consistent with the iPhone GUI.

Here are screenshots of how it turned out:

Buttons in screenshot one (left to right) are: main menu, live TV, video gallery, play DVD, play music. The second row (Navigation) buttons allow movement through the menus. Third row: escape, switch to keypad view, enter. On the keypad screen, the menu icon toggles back to the menu view.

And if you're interested, I've put up an online version of the remote that I haven't tested in anything other than my iPhone, so please don't hate me if it shows up broken in IE.

Finally, for those of you who want to give this a shot for yourself, I've made a tarball with all of the the various pieces that went into making this work, along with some instructions that may or may not work for you. Good luck.

Anyone know what Exlinks is?

kyle — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 15:18:18 -0500

I'm not sure why I did it, but I signed up for eXlinks. Maybe you should sign up, too. Or better yet, maybe you could tell me what it is.

Weeks after the fact, Guardian still wrong

kyle — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 11:18:00 -0500

A few weeks back I made a post about how a "fact" from Gullible.info made it into an article in the Guardian UK, via Wikipedia. Basically what happened is some reporter probably didn't want to be bothered with earning their paycheck, so they just lifted material from the Wikipedia page on Timothy Leary. It was shoddy journalism for a reporter to include unverified information from a Wikipedia page in what is supposed to be a credible news source.

And now, nearly three weeks after I emailed them and told them their article contained completely fabricated information, it hasn't been corrected. The lede still reads:

He exhorted America to "turn on, tune in and drop out" and claimed to have discovered a new primary colour - which he called gendale. Now Timothy Leary, the eccentric spokesman of the 1960s counter-culture, is to become the subject of a Hollywood movie.

I received one reply to my email about this error:

Your link to the article doesn't connect and I can't find such an article in our archive. Do you have some more information to help me find it?

Best wishes,
Murray Armstrong

Apparently because the URL had a line break in it (between the http:// and the domain) it didn't get parsed into a link, and it seems as if copying and pasting is out of the question. I emailed back a link that wouldn't break, but I still haven't heard anything.

Of course, no one is keeping score when it comes to the accuracy of Wikipedia, but for the record, I was able to make the correction to the Wikipedia page myself.

(Note: Gullible.info is also hosting a discussion about the "color," if you're interested.)

Update: The mistake has been corrected, the fabricated info is now gone. Huzzah!

Digg this article

Wikipedia article sends Reuters reeling

kyle — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 10:48:00 -0500

Irony can really make my day sometimes.

Turns out I wasn't the only person who thought the article that Reuters ran about Wikipedia responding to Kenneth Lay's death was a petty pile of garbage. (jasonunger.com and Wikipedia blog.) But the story just took a turn for wonderful.

Apparently getting accurate information is difficult for Reuters, too. They have since issued a correction to the article, after misidentifying the source of their information.

Wikipedia is a community edited encyclopedia. Not a news source. People don't check it for breaking news, and they shouldn't check it as a endpoint for authoritative information. If it takes a few minutes for new information to be incorporated into a Wikipedia article, that is understandable, even expected. Reuters, on the other hand, fits into a different niche. They should be a source of reliable, authoritative, and unbiased information, exactly what their original article isn't.

On a related note... Question of the day: how long will it be before the Encyclopedia Britannica article on Kenneth Lay reflects his death?

(Found the correction via)

"...the growing phenomenon that is, Internet"

kyle — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 17:13:00 -0500

It's incredible to see how quickly the Internet has been adopted. 1993 wasn't really that long ago. (via)

Just bought a new server from LayeredTech.com

kyle — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 17:18:04 -0600

I'm pretty excited. Gullible.info is getting the kind of sustained traffic to warrant the move from shared hosting, to dedicated hosting. So we ponied up and now as soon as it gets configured we'll have the new box up and running. Hopefully by the end of the month, we'll have the site fully migrated, and then we'll be able to add on some pretty rockin features. Stay tuned.

Who wants to join a fantasy fishing league?

kyle — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 16:44:56 -0600

ESPN has this thing called B.A.S.S. I don't have an account. Someone try this out and tell me what it's like. I imagine that fantasy fishing is incredible.

Google news search of "RIAA" returns this:

kyle — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 10:56:01 -0600

In my last post, I cited a news search for "RIAA," and I was very amused by the headlines. You might be, too.

RIAA sues woman that has no computer
Afterdawn.com - 12 hours ago
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has found yet another strange case amongst the thousands of copyright infringement suits it has launched ...

Between rock and a hard place
Globe and Mail, Canada - 8 hours ago
... According to Nettwerk and the family's lawyers, the RIAA is demanding that the family pay a legal settlement of $9,000 (US), or half that if paid within a ...

Addonics announces new iPod to PC conversion kit
Geek.com - 1 hour ago
... It also means itÃ¢â‚¬â„¢sa good solution for the RIAA to subpoena iPods to search them for illegal copyright material, thus extending its reach outside of just the ..

DRM News From All Over
Stereophile Magazine, NY - 15 hours ago
... Nettwerk vs the RIAA: How's this for a heart-warming scenario? A recording artist, MC Lars, gets an

RIAA Watch Speaking in Tongues
CounterPunch, CA - Feb 4, 2006
... Even if those words perpetuate the RIAA propaganda that bootleggers are sub-human creatures, void of morals, who have direct links to terrorism. ...

RIAA defendant 'has never used a computer'
IT Week, UK - Feb 3, 2006
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has issued another 750 writs against people it believes are pirates, including a carer in New York who ...

RIAA claims computerless woman was a pirate
Inquirer, UK - Feb 3, 2006
THE RIAA seems to have adopted a "sue everyone policy " in its cunning plan to stop file sharers. Not ... cent. So the RIAA sued her. ...

Ex-RIAA chief opens antipiracy consultancy
ZDNet - Feb 2, 2006
... The firm will work with economist Barry Massarsky, who has previously worked with the RIAA and music composers, to help companies and venture capitalists ...

Admittedly, these are all online sources, so they're probably at least a little biased. But still, the RIAA is really doing a bang-up job staying on top of its public image.

Tips for maximizing Digg traffic

kyle — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 13:49:19 -0600

Erratic Wisdom has a good article about ways to successfully leverage traffic from Digg links.

...most digg readers are at your site for a quick read, but you should try to keep as many as you can reading. A few ways to do this include adding a Ã¢â‚¬Å“Related ArticlesÃ¢â‚¬Â list under the post in question. I have also found that a Ã¢â‚¬Å“Most PopularÃ¢â‚¬Â list of articles can be very successful. Digg users are coming to (or making) a popular article and it is logical that they would want to see other successful posts from the author.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with one of my thesis advisors, Peter Loge, about a press conference my friends and I were putting together. We had all sorts of answers to his questions, but he stumped us by asking, "what are you going to do the day after the event?" I'm glad I was tuned in to that important question early in my life/career. It's got a lot of application in all sorts of communication efforts, and gets you thinking in a long-term mindset.

What do you do after the press conference, and what do you do after the Digg link? Two questions that should be considered in advance.

Poke me

kyle — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 23:34:29 -0600

If you're logged into facebook at the moment, you can use this button to poke me. No confirmation, just a poke. Heads up, this isn't going to work too well if you're not logged into Facebook.

Pretty cool, eh? Well, you can do it yourself. Copy this code into your blog with a few minor tweaks:

Change **** ####### **** in the "id" field to your user ID. You can find this number when you visit your user profile page. It will say profile.php?id=#######. You're gonna have to take out the stars, too -- just put in the number.
Set the src on the image input tag to whatever picture you want, or leave it as it is. I'll host the image as long as a lot of people don't use it.
Paste this on your site

When you poke someone, it is processed when you submit a form. That form is just a little bit of text that your browser sends to Facebook. This shortcuts the Facebook site and the form submitting and lets you do it all in one wonderful step, wherever you are. It wasn't challenging to make, all I did was copy and paste the code off the facebook site and then add a few little things -- like the full URL for the form action.

What's next? -- I'm mulling over the idea of making a script that lets you post comments to my wall automatically.