Thursday 12 November 2009

Netgear DGN2000 with o2 LLU Broadband

Here are the settings for if you want to replace the standard o2 Thomson modem/router with the Netgear DGN2000. These should be entered into the web interface.

Sunday 1 November 2009

Accessing ADSL Line Stats from o2 Wireless Box III

I can't find any easy way to access ADSL line stats through the o2-supplied "Wireless Box III" (a Thomson TG585n).

The only way that I could access them is by using this link.

Once you've got them, you can copy them into a stats checker such as this one.

This should all work with the standard "Administrator" user (no password), other functionality is available with the SuperUser user - password default is "O2Br0ad64nd".

Tuesday 14 July 2009

Writing Python with PSPad


PSPad is a great editor for programmers. Instead of using a dedicated Python IDE, PSPad can be tweaked to compile and run scripts directly. Here's how...

Wednesday 8 July 2009

Updating twitter from python

Just looking into posting twitter updates from python. I've found three methods so far: -
Hmmm, more investigation required...

Tuesday 7 July 2009

Upgrading Memory in Acer Revo

Here are some quick instructions on upgrading the memory in an Acer Aspire Revo PC.

Pimp my Revo!

I've added some extra RAM and a new larger hard drive to my Acer Aspire Revo so here are the final specs: -

    Sunday 5 July 2009

    Swapping Hard Drive in Acer Revo

    The Acer Aspire Revo has a lot of potential for a home media player but the 160gb hard drive won't be large enough for everybody.

    I spotted a special offer on a Iomega Prestige 500gb Portable Hard Drive which contains (in my case) a Seagate Momentus 5400.6 drive, model ST9500325AS .

    I already had a working installation of Windows 7 RC, so here's how I swapped the hard drives: -

    Saturday 4 July 2009

    XBMC With VDPAU and iPlayer

    There's an interesting article on the How to do something differently... blog about getting VDPAU working with iPlayer under Linux with the SVN build of XBMC. I'll be sure to look into it some more when I install Ubuntu onto my Revo.

    Friday 26 June 2009

    Opening the Acer Aspire Revo

    There's a useful page on opening the Acer Aspire Revo here. Will come in useful for when I add an extra 1GB RAM to the existing 1GB, or maybe swapping the hard drive for a larger one.

    Saturday 20 June 2009

    Installing Windows 7 on Acer Aspire Revo

    Here are some instructions for installing Windows 7 RC onto the Acer Aspire Revo.

    Power Consumption of Acer Aspire Revo

    I did some quick tests on the power consumption of my Acer Aspire Revo R3600 which arrived yesterday.

    Thursday 18 June 2009

    Streaming HD Video to Xbox 360

    I've been experimenting with encoding HD videos using EncodeHD and then streaming them to an Xbox 360 via TwonkyVision from my QNAP TS-101. The QNAP TS-101 is a small NAS device with 64mb RAM so I think its a safe assumption that no transcoding is being done.

    I first took a sample video from here and then encoded it using the various presets. The files were then copied to the QNAP, and then accessed from "Video Library" on the 360 (note: not via the Media Center Extender).

    Saturday 13 June 2009

    Ubuntu Wallpapers

    To install some nice wallpapers on Ubuntu, run the following command: -

    sudo apt-get install peace-wallpapers tropic-wallpapers ubuntustudio-wallpapers blubuntu-wallpapers

    Monday 8 June 2009

    Xbox 360 Multi-Player Games

    Here are some good Xbox 360 XBLA games that I have identified may be worth looking at. Most of them are also multi-player (either local or via Xbox Live)

    Tuesday 19 May 2009

    Dropbox

    I know its been around for ages, but I've finally got around to trying "dropbox". If you haven't heard, it allows you to synchronise folders across different PC's.

    Friday 3 April 2009

    Useful Plugins for Gimp

    Gimp is the image editing tool for Linux. To install additional plugins such as drop shadow etc, the easiest way is to install gimp-plugin-registry.

    This can be done using the Ubuntu packages: -

    sudo apt-get install gimp-plugin-registry

    Saturday 28 March 2009

    Wednesday 25 March 2009

    Starting a VM from the Command Line

    Starting a VM from the Command Line (or via a shortcut on the desktop) is easy - just use the command: -

    VBoxManage startvm name_of_virtual_machine

    for example : -

    VBoxManage startvm "Windows XP"

    Sunday 22 March 2009

    USB in VirtualBox

    Here are the steps required to get USB working on a Linux host (tested with VirtualBox 2.1.4)

    Friday 2 January 2009

    Combining PDF Files

    Combining PDF files in Linux is ridiculously easy - its just a matter of installing the PDF Toolkit package (pdftk) and then running the following command: -

    pdftk file1.pdf file2.pdf file3.pdf cat output newfile.pdf