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A New Way to Skip Commercials

Posted: Mon, 07 Feb 2011 16:00:30 +0000

If you have never owned an HTPC with the ability to automatically skip commercials then you probably should stop reading this post right now. Otherwise, carry on and I will explain to you how I think commercial skipping should work.

How Things Work Now

Currently if you want to flag commercials, you need to record the program and then set up your commercial skipping software to evaluate your recording. The flagging software will look for things like black frames, station logos, volume fluctuation, and other differences that can use to know when there is a commercial and when your show is on. Some software will even allow you to set up profiles on a show by show basis if there is a pattern to when they show commercials. This method works fairly well but there are some major drawbacks that will never be addressed with this model.
The flagging isn’t always 100% accurate
Despite getting better all the time, there are still some tricks that stations do that throw off commercial flagging software. One of the worst in my experience is playing the last joke of the show while the credits are rolling.
Commercial flagging takes a while
Not only does the flagging take a while because every frame of the show needs to be analyzed but the process is also very dependent on how fast your CPU is. If you are flagging commercials while trying to watch TV this can slow down other things drastically. While the process can be sped up a bit with software optimization it will never be instantaneous and this will always be a problem.
It is difficult to flag commercials in real time
If you have a fast enough CPU you can do this with some software but in most cases trying to flag commercials in real time will slow down your system and cause either the CPU to be used 100% or your hard drive won’t be able to keep up and your system will start to freeze or stutter during playback. Just imagine if you were trying to watch live TV, while flagging commercials, while another recording was happening with its own commercial flagging running. Your hard drive would be writing two shows while simultaneously reading 2 shows. If you do want to flag commercials in real time it is going to cost you extra money in hardware.
Commercial info doesn’t sync between all devices
If you have more than one TV your second HTPC should have all the information of the first, but what if you want to take that recording on your laptop, phone, or tablet? Most likely the video player on that device won’t support commercial skipping. The only way to get around this is to transcode the video, but if your flagging isn’t 100% accurate you can’t trust removing parts of the show until after you have watched it. And who wants to watch a show, set the flagging information correctly, transcode the show, and then transfer the show to your mobile device so you can enjoy it?

The Solution

So how can we fix the problem? Crowd sourcing. This would work by having people scan their recordings like they currently do, but it would also give them an option to upload their commercial timestamps to a centralized server.
This server will store the show ID, channel ID, commercial times, and location (time zone). I am not sure if all of that information is needed but it seems like it would cover scenarios of different stations cutting up shows for first time airs as well as repeats and also should cover any differences based on location. The more people that upload their timestamps the more reliable the information will be because the backend can compare uploads to see which ones are consistent and which ones may have missed a part of the show.
With this model all of the above problems could be taken care of because you now can trust your commercial flagging 100% and can even flag commercials in real time on a slow machine. Transcoding would be accurate which would let you transcode with confidence and skip commercials on the go.
Because most HTPC software allows for plugins, there would need to be plugins written for the major HTPC software or current software could be made to adapt to this method. In either case, downloading an XML file to be used for commercial skipping is vastly easier to do than creating the video processors that exist currently. With this method, commercial flagging can be cross platform without the need of video analyzers to detect commercials.

How to Make it Free

This model will be sustained by allowing people to upload their own commercial flags in exchange for being able to download commercial flags. The upload does not need to be done immediately after the show airs and this will allow for commercial flagging to take place during downtime without affecting live TV on the HTPC.
If someone does not have a machine capable of flagging commercials, they can purchase commercial flags for a cheap fee, something to help cover server costs.

I don’t have the time, nor the skill to set up this system so I am throwing it out there for anyone to take advantage of and make the HTPC world a better place. If you do create something that can do this, I only ask that you make a MythTV plugin and let me use the service for free.
Life and How to Survive It

Posted: Sun, 23 Jan 2011 15:41:29 +0000

Hacker Monthly is a print version of the best Hacker News articles in a visually appealing format. I have recently subscribed to the magazine because I found it interesting and I got the subscription for free (yes, legally). After reading the first two issues I will probably pay for my next year subscription.
In the latest issue I read, there was a convocation speech given by Adrian Tan which I found inspiring. I decided to repost it so that those who may read my blog might be inspired as well.

I must convey my thanks to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give you your Convocation speech. It’s a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so, as a husband.
My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way, except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practicing at home during conversations between us.
On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living, by being disagreeable.
Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.
And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you’ve already won her heart, you don’t need to win every argument.
Marriage is considered to be a great milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will get married. Some of you will enjoy the experience of marriage so much that you will be married many, many times. Good for you.
The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You’re done learning.
You’ve probably been told the big lie that “Learning is a lifelong process” and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters’ degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don’t you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be their customers.
The good news is that they’re wrong.
The bad news is that you don’t need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as shock to some of you. You’re in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, or even 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.
I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I’m here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.
You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live for so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There’s very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup.
Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.
Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live five years longer than
that, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.
So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you’ll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.
Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they’re 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their Convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn’t meet their life expectancy.
I’m here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.
After all, it’s calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to be average.
Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.
That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.
If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be average. And you don’t need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.
What you should prepare for, is a mess. Life’s a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, and moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.
Don’t expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up; No one knows.
What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.
Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.
The most important is this: do not work.
Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.
Work kills. The Japanese have a term “Karoshi”, which means death from overwork. That’s the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there’s nothing left. It’s like a rock being ground into sand and dust.
There’s a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are “making a living”. No, they’re not. They’re dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.
People will tell you that work ennobles you, and lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan “Arbeit macht frei” was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.
Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remaining sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach to that end anyway.
Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.
I like arguing, and I love language.
So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn’t do that, I would’ve been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction – probably a sports journalist.
So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don’t imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you want to do. In fact, I’ll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself from pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.
Find that pursuit that will energize you, consume you and become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don’t, you are working.
Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I’m not asking you to speak it, or to write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.
In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror. I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated.
It’s not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong that it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.
One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it’s often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one’s own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.
The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.
I didn’t say “be loved”. That requires too much compromise. If one changes one’s looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.
Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. I know it may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We’ve taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It is far more easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable.
Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the true worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.
Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn’t happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.
You will find that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.
You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.
Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don’t, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.
Don’t work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.
You’re going to have a busy life. Thank goodness there’s no life expectancy.
2011 Tech Predictions

Posted: Sat, 01 Jan 2011 20:22:46 +0000

After doing this two years I figured I needed to continue my tradition. If you want to see how right or wrong I was in previous years check out my 2009 predictions and 2010 predictions.

Computers

1. First of all 2011 will be the year of the tablet. That isn’t a prediction, it’s more of a fact. I think the big winner in the tablet world will eventually be Google with Android simply because they will have the cheapest and most devices. This has already been proven true with cell phones.
2. Even though the company with the cheapest and most devices will eventually win, advertising will win the tablet market in the short term. It doesn’t matter who has the best device or the best software. The company who has the most successful marketing campaign will win. This makes me think that the iPad will continue to sell well, the Blackberry Playbook will have a decent market, even though it will suck, and HP won’t have much traction unless they change their strategy. In the end, Android will still probably take the lead because they will have the most companies pushing Android tablets.
3. Because of tablets in the <$500 range I think laptops will begin to take a hit in sales. While this has already been reported with the iPad, it will actually be true in 2011. Oh and desktops don't have a chance. Even businesses will begin to go away from desktops and start offering more laptops, tablets, and thin clients.
4. Apple and Microsoft will begin to change their strategy for their computer operating systems. I think Microsoft will begin to rely heavily on "cloud computing" and try to offer some of their own services but mainly focus on always connected devices with instant on. Apple, on the other hand, still won't embrace 3rd party cloud services and will expand their own Mobile Me platform and continue to segregate their users. While this won't cause an Apple revolt in 2011, I think there may be an uprising in 2012.
5. Microsoft won't have a real answer to Windows on a tablet. While they will have lots of plans and still push out devices, they won't have something that is finger friendly until 2012. Even though what they should do is put Windows Phone 7 on tablets.

Cellphones

1. Smartphones will continue to expand their market and the Verizon iPhone will finally come out. The iPhone market share won’t go up as much as some people expect because most people that want a smartphone are already entrenched in the platform they are on now. And 2011 will have so many good phone operating systems that the iPhone won’t be “the best” anymore. iPhone market will still go up, but it won’t catch Android.
2. AT&T will be forced to stop riding the iPhone success wave and either slash their prices or finally get some decent devices. My theory is they will reach out to HP and Blackberry for exclusive devices rather than lowering prices to Sprint and T-Mobile level.
3. Network will be the big marketing push for carriers at first but that will die down near the end of the year because most of the networks will begin to share the same coverage and network technology. Also phones will become less exclusive because quad-band and penta-band phones will become the norm. Although 2011 will still see very few LTE voice devices.
4. Customers will start adding devices to their contracts because more devices will have cellular radios and the wireless data will finally became fast enough to use. I think there may even be a push for people to ditch their traditional internet provider and just tether their phone/buy a modem because it will be cheaper for them.

Video Games

1. Nintendo will finally have to announce a new console. The Wii sales will drop so much that Nintendo will updated it to a Wii HD that has Blu-ray, HD graphics, and 3D capabilities. They will also incorporate the Wii Motion Plus controller into the standard remote and probably have a standard webcam with a high focus on video chatting and video integration into games. I am hopeful that people will finally become tired of the same thing and Nintendo’s success will plummet until they are innovative again.
2. Microsoft won’t announce a new console at E3 but will probably hint at something coming in 2012. They will continue to update the Xbox 360 to add value to the system, but developers will need more processing power and more storage space to push the envelope. And they won’t get that from the 360 because of the fragmentation of the console install base.
3. Sony won’t come out with a new console but will finally create better online services that will allow developers to easily take advantage of cross game chat, universal lobby rooms, and video chat without having to program it from scratch.
4. A new company, or possibly existing company, will come out with a “console” with the main focus of bringing PC games to the TV. It will be similar to OnLive but will have a better library and subscription model that will actually be successful. They will also include support for iOS and Android if they truly want to “make it”.

Other

1. There will be a decline in major technology breakthroughs because the economy will finally level out and companies will realize that they can’t just keep pushing new products because people aren’t buying them. This won’t stop companies from coming out with new things, but big breakthroughs won’t happen as often as they did in 2009 because people don’t have the money to buy it and companies don’t have the money to develop it.
2. Streaming services will continue to try and eat away at the cable TV market but it will take big companies like Google, Microsoft, or Apple to make it truly successful. I am hopeful that Microsoft will finally make a all-you-can-eat video service, a la Zune pass, that will work on the 360 and Windows that might compete. No matter what, a pay-per-view model will not work, and content providers will be stubborn to allow this type of model.

That is all I got for this year. Let me know if you have any predictions in the comments or if you agree/disagree. Either way I hope everyones 2011 is great and I am looking forward to all the announcements to come.
WebOS 2.0 Wishlist

Posted: Mon, 12 Jul 2010 18:00:29 +0000

I have been a webOS advocate since I first installed the emulator on my computer and saw just what the software could do. WebOS has seen some much needed updates over the past year but there are still some things that I feel are lacking or even completely missing as it is today. I just wanted to put together a wishlist of features I would love to see in webOS 2.0.

Gmail integration – This is obviously something that Android does great and even Blackberry’s have great support for. WebOS however is lacking some key features when it comes to Gmail. Even if webOS simply got Gmail tagging and archiving down that would probably be good enough for my mobile needs. Gmail as it currently stands just leaves something to be desired on webOS.

Google Navigation – One of my favorite features on any modern mobile platforms is Google Maps. When using an Android phone that experience is amplified 1000% by the simple fact that if I want to search for something I can get free turn-by-turn directions to my destination. Google has already said Google Navigation will be coming to more mobile platforms, let’s just hope webOS is one of them.

Unified preferences app – It is great that you can have a whole page of the menu for preferences, but it really should all be combined in one app for device preferences. This not only includes sounds, notifications, screen brightness, and bluetooth, but it should also have things like email accounts, chat accounts etc. This way you can go one place for everything and not have to open up individual programs to find the settings for your email/chat/calendar/etc.

Customize quick menu I was informed that this is possible just the same way you can reorganize the launcher menu. I had no idea but I feel like an idiot now that I never tried it. – This can be accomplished with an easy hack, but what if I don’t want my contacts on my quick menu? I have too many contacts to scroll through anyway. In order for me to find anyone I need to call I use the universal search feature. I just don’t understand why this feature hasn’t been there all along.

On screen keyboard – I got used to the Pre’s keyboard faster than I thought I would. The keys are a little cramped but the layout is one of the best I have ever used. That being said, sliding open the Pre for all typing gets to be a hassle. The lack of voice recognition and on screen keyboard actually makes me prefer the Pixi’s form factor more than the Pre’s. If webOS had either speech recognition or on-screen keyboard the Pre’s form factor would be the clear winner.

Speech to text – I typically am not one to like voice recognition software but sometimes it comes in really handy. If I want to place a call while driving, or do a quick search in Google or IMDB, typing isn’t always the easiest way to do it. If this feature doesn’t work well it could be a disaster. But if it works about as well as speech to text in Android I will be satisfied. Also voice activation for calls and voice announcements for who is calling would be a great added bonus.

Swipe down action for cards – Swiping left and right is great, swiping up makes sense, but how about swiping down? I don’t exactly know what it could do but the option seems like it could be beneficial in some apps. The only thing that comes to mind would be on webOS printers. Swiping up gets rid of the picture/document you want to print, while swiping down prints. Maybe on phones swiping down can send information to another program like sending a picture in an email.

More Gestures – There’s lot of potential for the gesture area and while forward, backward, and scrolling makes good use in apps, there is plenty more that can be done with the gesture area. Maybe a two finger pinch brings up voice command, or two finger swipe up to open the on screen keyboard.

Video chat – Video chat is over-hyped and I am sure under used. But if HP can bring a true open standard, cross platform, and 3G usable app to webOS I think it may see a bit more use than just a check box on a spec sheet.

Macro mode for camera – This could be a software or hardware issue, in either case, it is badly needed on all webOS hardware. Apps for scanning barcodes, OCR, and augmented reality suffer from no macro mode on the camera.

Information on wallpaper/widgets – Widgets would kill the aesthetics of webOS. But not having any information available for my upcoming calendar appointments, unread emails, or messages really makes webOS inefficient for business users. If I want to check my schedule for the day I need to turn on the phone, unlock the phone, open the calendar app, and then scroll through my day. That requires a minimum of 1 button push and 2 clicks. Calendar information should be available either on the wallpaper itself (embedded text or widget) or be able to be added to the lock screen. I should be able to see what I need to be doing or working on with 1 button.

More pages in menu – I know it is an easy hack, but the average user does not hack their phone. If webOS is going to be getting more great apps, 3 pages just won’t cut it. Consolidating preferences may help, but there needs to be more room besides scrolling down. If Palm has some good ideas about app organization (besides folders) I am all ears.

This is just some of the things I have thought of over the past couple of weeks and honestly I am super excited to hear what Palm has in store for webOS fans. How about you, what are your much desired webOS 2.0 features. Please let me know in the comments.
I’m Sorry Lifehacker, but you’re wrong

Posted: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 17:48:58 +0000

I was thinking the other day, you know what my site needs? More rants. That is exactly what I bring you today cause I am finally fed up with something in the technology industry. What exactly am I fed up with? Well, a lot of things, but this particular post is about the complete disregard for what I argue is the best mobile operating system available, webOS.
I understand that the iPhone is the king of the hill (well technically RIM is but they suck anyway and are only ahead because of the giant corporate following) and Android is the new buzz word, but how can so many comparisons just ignore the most intuitive, productive, and flexible platform? Honestly I really am sick of the fact that webOS is left out of most mobile device comparisons simply because the “tech industry” doesn’t use it because it isn’t cool enough to get headlines. The only thing that gets webOS into the headlines is when one of their amazing and thought provoking creators leaves Palm to work for another company. Why is this big news if webOS sucks? The truth is, webOS is fantastic and these other mobile operating systems will benefit from the talent behind webOS. But that doesn’t mean webOS is going to lose out because webOS is already ahead of all the competition.
The thing that has held webOS back is the fact that it was only on 2 phones and one of those phones had questionable build quality. But lets face it, there will be a new webOS phone in the future and I think we can all assume that Palm/HP aren’t stupid about what hardware they need to use for the next webOS phone. The thing that finally made me write this rant was lifehacker’s article comparing iPhone to Android. I mean really, I understand that both platforms just announced major updates, (iOS 4 and Android 2.2) but I think that webOS, which hasn’t seen a major update for at least 4 months, is still ahead of the game and I think it is about time that people start to recognize it.
I took the liberty to fix Lifehacker’s article to actually take into account all three competing mobile operating systems in the consumer market.

Ease of use; Winner: 2-way tie
This one we can call a tie between iOS 4 and webOS because both interfaces are just as easy to launch and run apps and both have little things that you need to get used to. Double tapping the home screen to switch apps isn’t super intuitive and neither is forward/back gestures in webOS. In either case, Android is the loser.

Openness; Winner: webOS
Obviously iOS loses here, Android is open source for its core OS and allows installing apps from outside of the marketplace but so does webOS. Where webOS takes the cake is the fact that there is no rooting of your phone to get access to parts that are supposed to be locked down. How to root the phone is FREAKING IN THE DOCUMENTATION!!! It doesn’t get any more open then that. And lets not forget the open nature of the platform to allow apps to be written in HTML, CSS, Javascript, or C/C++ if you want. Due to this wide open nature, amazing things like Preware has been made available to tweak every last “kernel” of your phone.
Google also loses by making their “default” apps (Gmail, Maps, etc.) completely closed source and even takes down anyone who tries to share them. Palm on the other hand has written every built in app according to the standards they hold their developers to and made the apps all open source so you could see exactly how they built the app. Android and webOS are both fairly open, but webOS is more open and is the winner here.

Battery Life; ~~Winner:~~ Bogus Category
WTF is this doing here?!? This has everything to do with hardware and almost nothing to do with software. In any case, I think we can agree that Android loses this category with almost zero battery conserving settings and complaints on almost every Android device. This is a bogus comparison when trying to compare mobile operating systems. If this were a debate between the iPhone 4, Evo 4G, and Palm Pre Plus this would be a perfectly valid comparison.

Multitasking; Winner: webOS
This is a no brainer. WebOS does multitasking better than any other mobile OS available period. Android is the only other one that even can run apps in the background but there is a reason that a task killer is the first thing every Android phone needs. And lets not even get into the difference between running apps and using approved services and fast app switching.

Software Keyboard; Winner: 2-way tie
iOS has evolved into the best software keyboard and Android actually gives you options for keyboards, I would call this a tie because if you want to use swype on Android, you can. A software keyboard is only good if you are used to its idiosyncrasies and can use it. Personally, I rarely have to get used to a hardware keyboard, but webOS doesn’t even have a proper soft keyboard option.

System-Wide Search; Winner: 3-way tie
They all have it, they all work about the same with the same oddities and features. It is a tie. But just for the record, Android and webOS did it first.

Notification System; Winner: webOS
Once again iOS is the clear loser here, and while I liked the idea of Android’s curtain at first it just plain sucks after using it for a few months. I can’t clear a single notification without clearing all of the notifications and I can’t have extended controls in a notification. I know it is possible, but in all the apps I have installed, I have never seen actual controls inside the notification, just an icon that always stays there and opens the app when pressed.

Voice-to-text; Winner: Android
This works really well 80% of the time in Android and is the clear winner without a doubt. The bad thing is, I only use it 5% of the time I am inputting any text. So it is great 4% of the time I input text but really wouldn’t be a missed function and I still would prefer a proper physical keyboard.

Syncing; Winner: 2-way tie
Who the hell wants to plug their phone into their computer anyway? iOS loses here because you need iTunes for updates and setup. Android is great as long as you use Gmail and have a Google account. WebOS creates an account for you and stores all of your settings AND apps installed. So with webOS, if you break/lose your phone, you can log in with your Palm account and not only do all your settings from every service (sans Facebook) come back, but the apps you had installed come too.

Non-Google Syncing; Winner: webOS
Ever heard of Synergy? You probably haven’t, but it wins. Gmail, Facebook, Yahoo, LinkedIn, and Exchange are all there, out of the box. There is not contest here.

Tethering; Winner: webOS
iOS is just now putting this feature in but because it has the typical Apple restrictions, (no teather in to the iPad, really?) and Android still costs money on any carrier that will allow it, webOS wins because it is available on the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus and is completely free on Verizon. Yes I know if you root your Android phone you can do it for free, guess what, you can do the same thing in iOS and webOS so no one cares. Heck, Windows Mobile 6.1 had this feature and it worked great and was always free, doesn’t mean WM is any good.

Release/Update Consistancy; ~~Winner:~~ Bogus Category
HUH?!? really? What does this have to do with how good a mobile OS is? because you know you will get an update every year? Is Windows better because you get patches every first Tuesday of the month? Or the fact that a new and improved Windows will come out every 3-5 years? NO it makes it worse. This shouldn’t even be on this list.

Customizable; Winner: 2-way tie
If we are talking about user customizations, Android wins hands down. Widgets are great, icons can be placed almost anywhere, and you can set anything you want as a background image. But if we want to talk about the underlying OS, that is a win for webOS. Just go look up Preware and kernel patches and then come back and see why I picked this as a tie for Android and webOS. Oh and I agree, webOS needs to allow more home/lock screen customizations. Widgets sure would be nice but not at the cost of slowing my phone down like it does in Android.

Apps; Winner: 2-way tie
WebOS cannot complete here. Both Android and iOS have >50,000 apps and at that point it just doesn’t matter. There will probably be an app for just about everything. I would actually call this one a slight win for Android just because you can still install apps outside of the marketplace and the web store they have announced should be a huge success. Oh ya, and that whole Apple approval process is a joke.

Web Browsing; Winner: 3-way tie
They are all based on webKit so what does it matter. Some will scroll faster than others and some have better resolutions, but that all depends on the phone and doesn’t matter for rendering. Android and webOS may have slight wins over iOS because they have embraced Adobe flash but once again, that is a phone specific thing because the device has to be up-to-snuff for playing flash content. A three way tie.

Gaming; Winner: 2-way tie
Android doesn’t even have a language that enables the rich games that iOS and webOS allow. And besides the quantity, webOS has every bit of the quality as iOS so it is a tie.

Music Player; Winner: 2-way tie
Android’s built in music player is terrible, iOS’ is as good as any iPod’s (which doesn’t really say much), and webOS’ is just OK. The fact that webOS’ player is open source makes the player really stand out from the crowd when you install simple things like lyrics, and wikipedia searches straight from the player. I know there are better 3rd party players on all the platforms but that is not what we are comparing here. So it is a tie between stock iOS and stock webOS.

Free Turn-by-Turn Navigation; Winner: Android
This is a killer feature, but lets be honest, this will probably come to iOS and webOS simply because Google can sell more ads if it exists on all the platforms. For right now though, it is a win for Android.

Google Apps Integration; Winner: Android
This is like saying iOS has the best iTunes integration. OF COURSE ANDROID IS INTEGRATED WITH GOOGLE APPS. If Android did not have the best app for Gmail I think we would all be very worried. This is one of those arguments that fluffs Androids numbers IMO, but I will leave it in just for the sake of argument. Every mobile OS will integrate with their own offerings, the problem is, Apple and Palm don’t have email or web app offerings. This is more a win for Google and less of a win for Android.

Google Voice; Winner: 2-way tie
Yes this is a cool feature, I have it (and have had it since it was Grand Central) but I never use it because it is iffy and I don’t think the service is quite there yet. In any case, both Android and webOS have native apps for Google Voice and iOS is stuck using a web page. Android integrates deeper into the system, but all of the basic features/settings can be set on either platform so it is a tie.It has come to my attention that webOS no longer has a native GV dialer since some of the recent webOS API changes. I was unaware that a recent update broke this compatibility. In any case, it is somewhat of a bogus category seeing as accounts are still invite only and I am sure only 1-2% of people who have GV even use it for their daily calls.

So what is that total again? This time taking out the stupid frivolous comparisons.
iOS = 7
Android = 10
webOS = 13

Do I own a iPhone, Android phone, or Palm device? No. I have a 4 year old Windows Mobile device (HTC Vogue) running Android 2.1. I have use plenty of iPhones and have convinced quite a few people to buy webOS devices. I just needed to let the few people who read this site know webOS is the best mobile operating system currently available on the market. I just hope other technology sites can finally recognize how great webOS is, and maybe stop focusing on flaws with a phone that came out when the original iPhone was still big news.
Errors with MiroBridge

Posted: Sun, 30 May 2010 15:43:09 +0000

For a while in MythTV 0.22 I was getting an error with MiroBridge saying Miro was not set up properly even though Miro worked just fine and I triple checked all my config files. I waited until upgrading to MythTV 0.23 to fix it because there was a much easier one button install option in Mythbuntu Control Centre. MiroBridge ran successfully once but I started getting files added to my recordings screen that didn’t exist. Once I manually cleared out the files MiroBridge automatically ran again but caused even more problems by having the two non-recordings show up 44 times.

Once I got all of those recordings removed MiroBridge would never successfully run for me again. I could run MiroBridge manually but every time I would get an error

AttributeError: ‘NoneType’ object has no attribute ‘lower’

and MiroBridge would just hang. I would have to force quit the script and never got past that point. I figured out how to fix this issue with a lot of Googling. The problem happens because all of those files that didn’t exist from before were referenced in my database and MiroBridge was trying to remove them. Because they weren’t cleanly removed from the recordings screen (or Miro) MiroBridge couldn’t delete the listings. So what we have to do is clean up these erroneous database references manually. If you have phpMyAdmin installed on your machine you can easily delete these referenced recordings through there but I didn’t want to have something else installed on my MythTV box so I did it through the terminal. Before you go on this is a great chance to learn how to use screen because we are going to want to reference a lot of information from a bunch of different terminal windows. You can either do this with multiple terminals or you can be cool and do it with screen.

Here are the steps you need to take to fix this error.

Step 1. Troubleshoot and Backup
Close out of MythTV and open a terminal. From the terminal run MiroBridge with the simulate option (-s) and redirect the output to a file (>). In MythBuntu 10.04 the command is
/usr/share/doc/mythtv-backend/contrib/imports/mirobridge/mirobridge.py -s > mirobridge.log
BTW this command needs to be run from the local machine and not through ssh because I believe the $DISPLAY variable isn’t set to :0 so MiroBridge gets confused when you are remote. We could change that variable but it is just as easy to work from the local machine.
Now we need to make sure you are having the same error I was having. To do this we are going to read that file you just created and check for any lines that tell MiroBridge to delete old recordings from the database.
cat mirobridge.log | grep oldrecorded
If you don’t have any output from this then you probably have a different error than what I was getting. If you have a bunch of lines outputted that look like this

Simulation: Remove orphaned oldrecorded record (None – ?????)

Then you have the exact same error and should continue on to the next step. Make note of the ????? value cause we will need it later. It should be the name of the video file that was giving us errors.
It is a good idea to always backup your mythconverg database so you may want to run this before continuing
/usr/share/mythtv/mythconverg_backup.pl

Step 2. Close Miro
ps aux | grep miro
Find each line that says something like /usr/bin/miro or mirobridge.py and then get the number at the front of that line and type kill *number* If you have more than 1 line just put each number and it will kill all of the running instances.
Now that Miro and MiroBridge have been killed move on to manually removing the recordings information form the database.

Step 3. Remove old data
First thing you will need is your database username and password. The easiest way to get this is just to use
cat /etc/mythtv/mysql.txt
At the begining of the output you should have DBUserName and DBName. You will need both of those but it is probably mythtv and mythconverg so make sure you also get the DBPassword near the bottom of that output.
Once you have that information connect to your mysql server. Replace ‘password’ with your actual password from the /etc/mythtv/mysql.txt file.
mysql --user=mythtv --password='password'
Then we just want to make sure we have the right mysql server (just because it is better to be safe than sorry).

SHOW DATABASES;
You should see your mythconverg table here so go ahead and use it.

USE mythconverg; SHOW TABLES;
You should then see a whole lot of tables but the one we want is the oldrecorded table. Just to make sure we have the right information you are going to view all the erroneous database entries before you delete them. For the ????? you need to use the recording name that you got from step 1. Make sure you use the correct case when searching for the information.
SELECT * FROM oldrecorded WHERE subtitle = "?????";
If there were more than one different entry names simply put OR subtitle = “?????” with your next value. In my case I had two different recordings that caused the problem so I used
SELECT * FROM oldrecorded WHERE subtitle = "STALKER_REPORTER_ITUNES.mp4" OR "tekzilla--tzdaily--0464--2009-10-16gmaps--hd.h264.mp4";
This should list all of the entries so now you just need to delete them from the database.

DELETE FROM oldrecorded WHERE subtitle = "?????";
Just like above you can use the OR command to delete multiple entries at once.
Once the entries are deleted just type exit; to leave mysql and go back to the normal shell prompt.

Step 4. Test
Now that the the entries have been deleted repeat step 1 again and you shouldn’t have any lines returned that say
Simulation: Remove orphaned oldrecorded record (None - ?????)
You should then be able to run MiroBridge without the simulation option and get your Miro videos imported into your recordings. It is a good idea to still use the verbose (-V) option just to make sure everything goes smoothly.
/usr/share/doc/mythtv-backend/contrib/imports/mirobridge/mirobridge.py -V

That is all you need to do. Just make sure you set up your cron job to automatically run MiroBridge however often you want and you should be all set.

I hop this helps and leave a comment below if you have any questions.
Making of webOS (r)evolution commercial

Posted: Mon, 17 May 2010 17:15:18 +0000

I know what you are thinking, “how did my wife create that amazing (r)evolution commercial?”

I would like to take a couple minutes to share with everyone how she made it, and what software I used to help her edit it.
First of all here was the setup.

She started with a piece of poster board paper taped to our kitchen floor. Then added a microphone boom with a mini tripod zip tied to the end of the boom. This allowed her to take pictures from the same height every time and also gave a little flexibility in moving the camera around. Finally she added two small halogen lights to either side of the paper to light the “stage”. When taking pictures she took a picture of the whole piece of paper every time and we used software to edit the photos later.

For the commercial she needed 3 full size webOS cards and 6 smaller phones. She started with making the phones.

The phones were made so well it was almost painful to do this to them. The animation was made by crumpling the phones and then playing the animation backward in the commercial.

The cards were pretty easy to make. The hardest part was the animation of the media player. To animate the media player we had to cut slivers off of each album art and then tape them back together one piece at a time. It was time consuming but we were very pleased with the result. The calendar was intentionally longer than the other cards to compensate for when it would be folded.

Once all of the pictures were taken we needed to figure out how to manage 1000+ pictures to make a 1 minute commercial. To start we split up the pictures into folders labeled for each scene and numbered them in order 01_dynatac, 02_nokia, etc. We then used Phatch to trim off edges of each picture and essentially “zoom” into each picture to the size we wanted. Once the pictures were trimmed Métomorphose renamed all the pictures in sequence and then Stopmotion stitched all the pictures together into one video file. To add music and narration to the commercial I used Audacity to record the script she wrote for me and then OpenShot and PiTiVi to match up the audio and video and then export to a finished file. We could have just used one video editor, but OpenShot had a weird white frame at the end of the video so we tried PiTiVi and didn’t have a problem.
We hope you all enjoy the video and I just wanted to take the time to show a little behind the scenes for everything that went into making it. If you listen to mintCast you will know how impressed I was with this finished product, and the fact that it was made entirely with free and opensource software.
If you get a chance, head over to webOS Roundup and vote for the commercial.
How to turn on Remote Desktop remotely

Posted: Fri, 23 Apr 2010 17:00:34 +0000

Occasionally you need to get something done on a remote computer (or a clients computer) but the computer doesn’t have an easy way for you to connect to it. Luckily, if you have admin rights to the remote computer, you can still connect without needing to turn on remote desktop before hand. To do that you will just need to download one thing. PsExec is a Microsoft tool part of their PsTools. PsExec is a portable program that you can copy to any USB drive or run it anywhere from your hard drive. Once you have PsExec download you just need to open a command prompt and browse to the folder with psexec.exe. Once the command prompt is open, type in this command and it will enable remote desktop on the machine you specify.

psexec \\machinename reg add “hklm\system\currentcontrolset\control\terminal server” /f /v fDenyTSConnections /t REG_DWORD /d 0

Make sure you replace “machinename” with the computer you are trying to control remotely. Once this command has run you should now be able to connect with mstsc.exe to the remote computer.
My webOS commercial

Posted: Sat, 03 Apr 2010 06:24:10 +0000

If you have ever talked to me about mobile phones and mobile operating systems you will know I am a big fan of webOS. I have never owned a webOS device but have convinced many friends to get them and would love to get one assuming the hardware gets an update. I came across webOSroundup because they are putting on a “PalmSpot Video contest” and decided after hearing the Engadget podcast bicker and moan about Palm’s horrible ads I would try my hand at creating an ad for the contest.
Just a preface for this video, I am not a video editor, film director, or obviously a music composer. This was also my first time ever using Final Cut. Let me know what you think about the video in the comments.

Also please share the video with everyone you know and watch the video over and over again between April 19th and May 3rd because the finalists are chosen by how many views the videos have during that period of time.
MythTV Star Trek Theme

Posted: Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:42:09 +0000

The MythTV theming challenge comes to a close Sunday January 31st and the entries are starting to show up on the MythTV theming mailing list.
Here is one that showed up that I am very excited about. It was created by Gary Butters (not me).

If you already have MythTV set up you can grab the theme from here. Just extract the folder from the tar.gz to the /usr/share/mythtv/themes/ folder and it should show up in MythTV frontend under setup -> appearance.