Simon's Gallery :: Mournes Walk

Yesterday Mel, Andy Sean and I took to the Mournes for a hill walk. It was my first time up there, the other three had gone together once before, what a great day out!

We did a walk called the Donard Loop, which is more of a walk than a climb, about 8 miles in total. The weather was mostly very good, and the scenery was beautiful. We set out at about 9:15am and finished shortly after 3pm, with numerous stops in between!

We stopped at a scenic old quarry for lunch, but the most notable stop was at the river on the way down, where we all enjoyed a refreshing paddle in the slow pools, and dipping our feet into the fast flowing waterfalls.

See some more pics in my gallery at: Simon's Gallery :: Mournes Walk

2 hard days work

Been in to at least 6:30 for the last 2 days, hopefully get away more quickly tonight. All this work isn't good for me.

Been on calls with US and Canada, slooooowwwww desktop sharing, installing applications. The sales guy was 1 hour late, and then didn't have the software with him. We had to download it, which took 2 hours.

That was the first day. The second day they said we needed to do it all again, with SSL. We still have no idea what we are doing. Today we had a VP meeting, at least that was simple :)

Postprocessing video using AviSynth

Doom9.net - The Definitive DVD Backup Resource more messing, much fin - this must become easier for consumer use.....

AviSynth Filter Collection

Computer Based central heating control

Computer Based Projects just may be what I'm looking for. I want to put a temperature sensor in each room, possibly automatic valves on each radiator [they seem to be available] and use a tiny Linux based PC as my central heating controller.

ADS DVD Xpress

Having toiled with my Pinnacle PCTV card for many hours, it is now on its way back to SVP for a refund.

The ADS DVD Xpress arrived on Friday, and I got it up and running, recording my VHS to my PC fairly quickly. I had to buy a SCART to video/stereo lead, as all the ones I had were not wired properly.

Anyhow, it seems to work nicely, I still have to test it out with a good quality video and full MPEG2 9Mb/s recording, but it's looking good so far

DVD Xpress

Downloads

Phone Booth

yet another waste of time film, it has some interesting ideas, and its nice to see someone actually own up to how bad they have been. This reminds me of teachers who told you annoying things which you didn't like doing were "charactor building". Well Colin Farrell vertainly had his charactor built!

Interesting concept, but not really a good film - at least it was short!!

[Colin Farrell, Kiefer Sutherland (DVD - 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment - August 11, 2003)]

Notice 719 VAT refunds for do-it-yourself builders and converters

Getting ready to submit the VAT claim for our selfbuild, all the information is available from Notice 719 VAT refunds for do-it-yourself builders and converters

3 months to do it, and millions of receipts, better get to it!

Network MP3 Players

Roku
AudioTron
cd3o
squeezebox
Model MP101

possible network connection issues

Onkyo NetTune NC-500

PCTV Stereo - the return

I have just received an RMA to return my PCTV Stereo for a refund - I was not impressed with it at all. If you turned the resolution up at all it lost audio/video sync. I saw that this was a common problem among users, and tried all the suggested things, defrag, different PCI, etc, but I couldnt get it to work properly (14 hours trying is a valient attempt I think)

I have worked with it for about 14 hours, changing PCI slots, defragging hard disks etc, implementing all the changes suggested at the pinnacle support forums http://webboard.pinnaclesys.com/read_forums.asp?WebboardID=1&SectionID=80&lng=1

I also read on the forums about many people having the same audio/video sync problems I had. My machine is well within the minimum spec, in fact it looks a lot like their recommended spec,

Sanitary ware...

So we ordered all our sanitary ware from Bradleys in Limavady around the start of April, and it was ready to be delivered, but we delayed delivery until Tuesday 20th April. The two cisterns for the ensuites were incorrect, the bath was not the one we ordered, and the taps in one ensuite were also wrong.

After being told that the correct cisterns were coming tomorrow for about a week, and finally we were told they would be in 10-11am on Thursday 29th April, which was still inconvenient as I had to hold the plumber off until this time.

We called over that morning, shortly after 11, and were told that they wouldn't be there until late afternoon. I asked where they were coming from, and as it was about an hours drive I said I would collect them myself. This seemed to trigger some sort of response, and I ended up on the phone to the delivery man, directing him to my house, and he actually turned up about two hours after that!!

Since then we have fought Bradleys for four antique pine cistern levers and for 5 weeks we have been told they would arrive tomorrow, or the next day, or the order has been delayed, or some other very poor excuse.

We ended up going over to get a refund, I just don't believe that they were ever ordered, and I wonder if I hadn't threatened to get the cisterns myself would they still not be here either???

This level of service is absolutely unacceptable, I can't imagine treating anyone this way, especially not a customer who has just paid £3000.

Pinnacle Showcenter Review

A badly written review, penned by mysel;f is now online at http://www.automatedhome.co.uk

Ahhh, my first published work....

Pinnacle PCTV

I got my PCTV stereo card (pinnacle) yesterday, and spent all night last night trying to get it to capture from my VCR. When I turn the bitrate up at all the audio and video loose sync.

I have a couple of things to try :
1 - Direct to divx format - now supported in the latest SW
2 - use endItAll2 to stop all processes on my machine
3 - I have downloaded various DVR software to try
4 - I'm going to give it a try under linux
5 - Use tmpgenc to shift audio track

X10 Software - Homeseer vs autom8it vs ???

Searching for X10 solution, started with ActiveHome software, read on and found Autom8It / homeseer, no idea which is better, they both seem to do the same thing, and they both cost around 100 quid


Homeseer supplier

Selfbuild Diary - see it all

www.ccso.co.uk is the location of my Selfbuild Diary where you can follow all the goings on in my house build. Enjoy!

Tivo Modes

UK Mode 0
This page explains how to configure your UK TiVo to make Mode 0 recordings. The TiVoCommunity thread is here.

The various modes are:
Mode Resolution Used by TiVo Modes
1 352 x 576 Basic and Medium
2 480 x 576 High
4 544 x 576 Best
0 720 x 576 (not used)

True Romance

One of my fav films, Tarantino wins again. The best thing about it is that girls think they are going to enjoy it, "ahh that sounds nice, why can't we watch more films like that?" ok then.....

Status Anxiety

From the description of this book
"The urge to be somewhere else is one of the abiding traits of human nature"

I found it as a link from the site about status anxiety http://www.alaindebotton.com/status.htm, which was made into a 2 hour documentery shown on channel 4 on Sat night

The Game

SPOILER :

Quite an intriguing film as I watched, I started off half asleep, and became rigidly awake by the end. How disappointing. I can't even entertain the idea that such a "practical joke" is even viable in movie-land.

Its about a rich businessman who enters into a "game," offered as a birthday present by his brother. His life is immediately disrupted, the TV starts talking to him, he is locked into the back of a taxi, floating to the bottom of a harbour.... etc, etc

At the end in a double barreled twist he finds out it is a practical joke, and simultaneously believes he has just killed his brother, staggers over to the edge of the building, and jumps. Suicide. We are to believe that this "joke" led him to a mental place where he commits suicide. But he doesn't, he lands on an inflated tent, on a spot marked with an 'X', with all his friends/relatives around saying "surprise" and "happy birthday". I would still have killed them. In fact I think I may have serially murdered them over the next few months/years. It is unbelieveable (even in movie world) for him to get up and go, ah, good one, you really had me there...

An intriguing film, but turned out to be a show worthy of the bin.

CVS from the states

Badly set up, incorrect authorisation information, and a slow connection. It just cant get worse. I cant get ADSL, so this is as fast as it will ever be.

oh for a 2meg pipe

some code, just so I dont have to write it again, again

foreach (@ARGV)
{
#P15='154 230'
#P25='256 384 '
#P50='512 768'
print "resize image $_ \n";
##get info
my $info= `../bin/imgcon -info $_`;
#Image Size: 1536 x 1024 x 1
my ($width, $height)=$info=~ /Image Size: (\d+) x (\d+) / ;
print "$width, $height\n";
my $new_width=sprintf("%.0f", $percentage/100 * $width);
my $new_height=sprintf("%.0f", $percentage/100 * $height);
print "$new_width, $new_height\n";
print `../bin/imgcon -scale $new_width $new_height $_`;

}