All-in-one home entertainment (satellite TV + PVR, IP TV + apps, and Media Centre)

So I am still undecided on media-center / IP TV (Android, etc) and PVR combo .. I'd like an all-in-one am a little surprised why there isn't a clean one yet.

Bucket-list:

1. 2 satellite receivers
2. a couple of terrabytes of storage - for existing picture, music and movies + recorded stuff
3. a media browser and viewer
4. ability to run Internet apps either native or in browser such as Spotify, various On-demand sites, Youtube,  random web-sites etc

Given all that I could have an Android TV stick, a media centre and a PVR - but really? Each are developing at their own pace and the lines are blurring but still there seem big gaps. Surprising really .. Throwing asterisk in there to be able to make audio and video calls would be good too.

So this thread will be for experiments along this lines to see what works 

First cab off the rank (given I can take the PMD server offline for a bit) is GeexBox on my Raspberry Pi.

GPIO frustrations

Having had issues getting my Raspberry Pi project working I stripped it down to debug what was actually happening.

Turns out I can read 3V3 from P1 and P6 (ground) fine ..

No GPIO ribbon = 3V3

But when I connect my GPIO ribbon cable the voltage dropped to 1V6 stopping even my LEDs working with the 220R resistors I was using. OK so my understanding here may not be fantastic but checking resistance across the M-M wires is only 0.4 Ohms. Measuring again across GPIO ribbon using 2 leads remains at 0.4 Ohms.

Time to get some basic Female to Male leads and be done with it... any ideas as to why the GPIO ribbon is behind the voltage drop?

Some LibreOffice tricks

Batch convert LibreOffice files to PDF

sudo libreoffice --headless --convert-to pdf *.docx

Just does what it says on the tin .. easy as. Note: sudo is needed - thanks Jay http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/msg28788.html and https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=37531

LibreOffice won't start (unless --norestore is used)

I often shut-down my laptop without checking for working documents / emails in draft. Things are so reliable in general that I can start up and continue (generally also the docs / emails were no so important that I could just walk away from unfinished). Lately I've had had the issue that I just couldn't start LibreOffice .. I found --norestore but needed it every time.

Check for restore items in the following file and just delete them

~./.config/libreoffice//user/registrymodifications.xcu

Pixel CL-N3 Pin out

In case there are others out there tempted to but the pixel CL-N3 as opposed to the Canon one (or other generic). No comment yet on actual use but here are the pin-outs

Thanks to http://www.doc-diy.net/photo/remote_pinout/

Raspberry Pi project - shutter control on Canon 7D

OK so I'm embarking on my first 'real' Raspberry Pi hack. I've got one running as a music server but that's not really what it's all about. It's time to do some GPIO and maybe work my way towards some real electronics.

What I've selected as my first project is to replicate something that's been done before - getting the Pi to trigger the shutter on my partners Canon 7D. As per http://www.ohmypi.com/2013/06/16/control-canon-camera-using-raspberry-pi-gpio-rpi-gpio-how-to/ and many others out there.

Here is my shopping kit:

• Raspberry Pi *
• GPIO ribbon cable*
• Basic Breadboard *
• Jumper Wires 6" M/M Pack of 10
• Asus USB-N10 **
• 0.5W Metal Film 470K 1% resistors (8 pack) **
• 2 x 2N222 NPN transistors **
• Pixel CL-N3 

* thanks to http://www.nicegear.co.nz

** thanks to Jaycar

Number 0Nxxxxxxx is currently OFFLINE

This is something that's been bugging me for a little while with my iax2 trunk to 2talk. Fundamentally I'm just a bit sow to get how it all hangs together. Generally it works out of the box so I don't 'need' to understand it to use it ... except it's good to know how it hangs together when things get weird.

That said some kind of recent change (possibly with 2talk plus account set-up) my registration died and 2talk showed me as 'OFFLINE' .. hmm.

*CLI> iax2 show registry
Host                  dnsmgr  Username    Perceived             Refresh  State
202.180.76.166:4569   N       0Nxxxxxx               60  Timeout
202.180.76.166:4569   N       0Nxxxxxx               60  Timeout

Ok so I'm not registered - but, I can make outbound calls ... odd? No - this is a clear description:

The only purpose of registration is to allow a device to identify its location on the network, so that Asterisk knows where to send calls intended for that device.

Thank you Mr O'Reilly http://ofps.oreilly.com/titles/9780596517342/asterisk-DeviceConfig.html

OK so I didn't change anything so perhaps I can force a registry reset / refresh, etc 

*CLI> iax2 unregister
Usage: iax2 unregister
       Unregister (force expiration) an IAX2 peer from the registry.

Hmm .. not helpful - I can't figure out what the peername is .. a few attempts from iax2 show peers to get the name don't seem to help. So I default to a fallback option - change the registry string to something wrong, reload asterisk, then change in back .. maybe. 

So I choose (rather fortuitously)  to replace:

0Nxxxxxx:@iax.2talk.co.nz 

with

0Nxxxxxx:@iax.plus.2talk.co.nz 

and  guess what, it works .. well maybe a change to the 2talk+ accounts? I can't find a reference say here http://blog.2talk.co.nz/iax2.html or  here http://www.2talk.co.nz/2talkplus/ . I've created a ticket so will see what they say.

*UPDATE* apparently if you're on 2talk+ you should always use .plus .. so looks like the last related change got pushed through and they've stopped supporting registration on the old domain. OK.

Nexus 7 - Office tablet - it's time to go paperless people

OK so after moving to Auckland to start a fledgling branch of the company I work for I'm thinking about operational readiness. And, next on my list is a printer/scanner/copier .. or is it? So I don't want toner cartridges or paper jams or manual duplex or whatever. Furthermore all the cool kids up here just take a tablet to meetings and with the features of Adobe Reader X (i.e. highlighting and freehand overlays) I'm thinking a tablet is a better first choice and aim to go paperless.

So having considered (and discarded .. for now) the Samsung Note 10 I have opted for a Nexus 7. So far so good - will update .. just opted for Wifi model to keep it cheap and simple but aside from tethering issues (easily getting documents on it before a meeting) we're up and running.