Saturday, October 22, 2005
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Don's TiVo
Last night I helped a buddy install a new kernel on his TiVo. Don came over about 5:00pm, and we had it running tivoweb, ftp, and telnet by 7:30pm.
We started the "dd" copy about 8:30pm, which was done by 3:30 this morning, then I started another copy (to increase the swap), which finished before I went to work.
Don seems pleased with the results, so he'll probably want help with his wife's tivo later. That shoul be much less time consuming, since it already has an 80 GB drive, and we won't need to copy content.
We started the "dd" copy about 8:30pm, which was done by 3:30 this morning, then I started another copy (to increase the swap), which finished before I went to work.
Don seems pleased with the results, so he'll probably want help with his wife's tivo later. That shoul be much less time consuming, since it already has an 80 GB drive, and we won't need to copy content.
Monday, October 10, 2005
TivOhYeah!
I was biting my nails for a while, not sure whether I would be able to fully recover from the debacle that is the misuse of the MFSADD -x /dev/hda /dev/hdb command, but in the end, it's done. It did take a larger drive and just over four hours to copy about 35GB of shows that were on the TiVo, but there were several episodes of Stargate Atlantis and Law and Order:Criminal Intent, not to mention several episodes of Blue's Clues (I love that game! ;-) that I didn't want to lose.
Throughout this whole process, I've been thinking about 'net guides, especially those for TiVo hacking. Don't get me wrong, I think guides are great, and I appreciate those who put their time into crafting such valuable resources. Still, guides can be dangerous (as I've so perfectly proven) because they provide you with enough instruction to be dangerous, but not enough understanding to make good, intelligent decisions.
My problem was that I didn't really understand the MFSADD -x /dev/hda /dev/hdb command before I hit the enter key. Sure, I understood generally that it expanded the MFS volume, but the guide I was using never explained all of the possible parameters for the command. Subsequent reading of the actually documentation for MFSTools 2.0 did provide me with that info, but not before I had made the mistake.
Perhaps the issue is that not everyone wants to understand what they're doing, they just want to know how to get the result in the fewest number of steps in the least amount of time.
Hopefully it was "lesson learned" for me, and the only real cost was the part of my weekend that I gave up to fix the problem I created. I guess only "time" will tell.
Throughout this whole process, I've been thinking about 'net guides, especially those for TiVo hacking. Don't get me wrong, I think guides are great, and I appreciate those who put their time into crafting such valuable resources. Still, guides can be dangerous (as I've so perfectly proven) because they provide you with enough instruction to be dangerous, but not enough understanding to make good, intelligent decisions.
My problem was that I didn't really understand the MFSADD -x /dev/hda /dev/hdb command before I hit the enter key. Sure, I understood generally that it expanded the MFS volume, but the guide I was using never explained all of the possible parameters for the command. Subsequent reading of the actually documentation for MFSTools 2.0 did provide me with that info, but not before I had made the mistake.
Perhaps the issue is that not everyone wants to understand what they're doing, they just want to know how to get the result in the fewest number of steps in the least amount of time.
Hopefully it was "lesson learned" for me, and the only real cost was the part of my weekend that I gave up to fix the problem I created. I guess only "time" will tell.
TivOhNo!
Argh!
So I totally biffed the TiVo upgrade, and now I'm in recovery mode. Here's what happened...
I had a hacked kernel running, TiVoWeb was up and accessible, everything was working as it should. But, when I moved to the larger drive several months ago, I had neglected to expand the volume. So my 120 GB hard drive was still giving me the 40 hours that the 40GB drive had provided.
So I popped the drive back in my Wintendo, looked through a guide for the command that I needed, and issued it. MFS volume now expanded, I popped the drive back into the TiVo box and turned on the box. But now the TiVo is in a Welcome. Powering Up... /restart loop.
After a bit more research, the command I used certainly expanded the MFS volume, but also attached a second drive to the TiVo volume set. Since only one of the drives went back into the TiVo, it went into the restart loop, since it couldn't locate the second volume.
Now I need to get another hard drive and copy the merged set (even though there is not data on the second volume) to a single drive.
So I totally biffed the TiVo upgrade, and now I'm in recovery mode. Here's what happened...
I had a hacked kernel running, TiVoWeb was up and accessible, everything was working as it should. But, when I moved to the larger drive several months ago, I had neglected to expand the volume. So my 120 GB hard drive was still giving me the 40 hours that the 40GB drive had provided.
So I popped the drive back in my Wintendo, looked through a guide for the command that I needed, and issued it. MFS volume now expanded, I popped the drive back into the TiVo box and turned on the box. But now the TiVo is in a Welcome. Powering Up... /restart loop.
After a bit more research, the command I used certainly expanded the MFS volume, but also attached a second drive to the TiVo volume set. Since only one of the drives went back into the TiVo, it went into the restart loop, since it couldn't locate the second volume.
Now I need to get another hard drive and copy the merged set (even though there is not data on the second volume) to a single drive.
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Truth or Fiction: No one ever got fired for buying cisco
I was paging through an October issue of Network Computing, and noticed a reader poll for an article entitled Vendor Profile: Cisco Redux. In responding to the question "Which of the following statements best describes you organizations' reason for buying from Cisco?", 17% of the 847 respondents, said that "No one ever got fired for buying from Cisco."
Now I don't have any information on how the poll was conducted, so I don't know how true the statement is (at least 144 of the 847 respondents claim they were never fired for buying Cisco), but it sure is funny.
Now I don't have any information on how the poll was conducted, so I don't know how true the statement is (at least 144 of the 847 respondents claim they were never fired for buying Cisco), but it sure is funny.
Quicksilver (Mac OS X)
In my spare time, I enjoy finding cool utilities and apps for my PowerBook. One of the more recent finds is Quicksilver.
I've been using the Mac since 1987, and this little utility is the coolest thing since the multifinder. Not only is it a great launcher for other apps, but it's not just limited to other applications or documents; it allows you to perform actions (such as launch, find, chat, dial, etc.) on objects (such as files, contacts, email address, etc.).
The craziest thing is not how cool this utility is, but how difficult it is to communicate in a clear way what it does. I'm sure part of my challenge in explaining the benefits of using Quicksilver lies in the fact that I have only scratched the surface of what can be done with it. Not that I buy lottery tickets (that's another rant for another time), but it's a great feeling to know that you've won, and then to see more and more zeros being added to the left of that decimal place. Awesome!
I've been using the Mac since 1987, and this little utility is the coolest thing since the multifinder. Not only is it a great launcher for other apps, but it's not just limited to other applications or documents; it allows you to perform actions (such as launch, find, chat, dial, etc.) on objects (such as files, contacts, email address, etc.).
The craziest thing is not how cool this utility is, but how difficult it is to communicate in a clear way what it does. I'm sure part of my challenge in explaining the benefits of using Quicksilver lies in the fact that I have only scratched the surface of what can be done with it. Not that I buy lottery tickets (that's another rant for another time), but it's a great feeling to know that you've won, and then to see more and more zeros being added to the left of that decimal place. Awesome!
Halo 2 Arrives
Halo 2 is out now!
The Computer store at the university at which I am employed held a launch event from 7PM until Midnight. There were four linked XBOXes on projectors. There was much fragging, and at the end of the event, they gave away a copy of the game, as well as several controllers.
They presold more than 40 copies of the game, which is pretty amazing, considering they have never carried console titles before. (And other than pre- and special orders, I don't think that they are planning to do so in the future.)
The Computer store at the university at which I am employed held a launch event from 7PM until Midnight. There were four linked XBOXes on projectors. There was much fragging, and at the end of the event, they gave away a copy of the game, as well as several controllers.
They presold more than 40 copies of the game, which is pretty amazing, considering they have never carried console titles before. (And other than pre- and special orders, I don't think that they are planning to do so in the future.)
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