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While fine-tuning our MythTV system, I noticed that the default menu-renderer is QT. There's nothing wrong with QT, except that it doesn't offer hardware acceleration that OpenGL does. So, using QT creates a higher system load on the MythTV frontend. This takes away CPU cycles that could be better spent, and provides a UI that is less smooth.

So, I enabled OpenGL menu-rendering for MythTV (0.21) only to find the menu transition taking a horrendous amount of time. There was an OpenGL fade that occurred on each screen transition that would take about 5 second to complete. This is when I realized that I should have installed the vendor's X Windows driver.

My MythTV machine has an NVidia GeForce FX 5200 graphics card installed. It's a few years old, but works perfectly for this purpose: fanless, hardware OpenGL rendering & MPEG-2 decoding, and DVI output. I went to the NVidia support site and downloaded the display driver. I then installed it and marveled at how much it improved everything. The system load was greatly reduced because the OpenGL rendering occurred in hardware, menu navigation was very quick, and a lovely fade effect occurs upon each screen transition.

So, the lesson learned was to install the NVidia display drivers when choosing OpenGL menu rendering with MythTV. OpenGL is a great improvement over QT, and having display drivers that can take advantage of hardware acceleration is a must.

Posted by Scott at 12:41 PM | Permalink

Menu navigation on our Series 2 Tivo has been agonizingly slow for the last 3-6 months. My expectations are based on the actual performance of the Tivo for the first 2.5 years. But menu navigation has dragged since Tivo introduced - wait, imposed - advertising throughout the menus and in the deletion confirmation menu shown at the end of each recorded program. Each click on a menu item results in a 30-60 second wait for the next screen to be displayed. I think that navigating the Web on a 14.4 kbps modem would provide a better user experience than what our Tivo offers.

So, tonight I got around to calling Tivo Support to get some answers. First, our Tivo is connected to our home network using a wired Ethernet adapter so there's no chance of signal interference being an issue. Second, I've gone through the steps of forcing Tivo to reconnect to the service looking for an update, and have performed a power-cycle of the Tivo to make sure that memory leaks aren't at fault. Unfortunately, none of these helped. The support person who handled my call looked at all of these facts and said that the only thing I could do was "exchange" our Tivo appliance for another Series 2 model at a cost of $149. We purchased our Tivo for $50. How can Tivo justify the price of $149? I declined the exchange and informed the support person that they had been no help whatsoever, and that paying Tivo over $150 per year for simple television guide data is ridiculous.

I now have additional motivation to get MythTV or another open-source PVR system working. Tivo's business practices impose replacement of perfectly good hardware on their customers. I am nearly certain that the lag in our Tivo has been caused by recent system software upgrades forced by the Tivo company. Tivo has lost my support, and will soon lose me as a customer.

Posted by Scott at 7:34 PM | Permalink

I've been interested in disaster preparedness for the last couple of years, and have taken steps to ensure that we're prepared for an emergency whether at home or on the road. On a surface level, this means assembling supplies that will be useful in the event that communications, shelter, food, or water aren't available. I've relied on the Internet a lot during the process of deciding what to include in my preparedness supplies. I hope that people will find my own list useful, too.

I keep our supplies in 4 medium-sized plastic storage containers. These are lightweight, durable, and water-resistant. While I probably could have used 2 or 3 containers, I found that 4 containers allowed me ample space in each container and the ability to limit the container's contents (i.e. kitchen item, food, etc). All of the containers are kept in our garage. There's no perfect place to keep supplies - must be sheltered from the elements and protected from theft, but not be crushed in an earthquake or other structural failure.

The following is a list of articles and guides that I found useful in deciding what to include in my supplies:

• Ready.gov from FEMA - publication on household preparedness
• American Red Cross - Prepare at Home
• UC Berkeley Office of Emergency Preparedness (earthquake-oriented)
• Daily Kos (5-part series of articles)

Here's the list representing my actual supplies at home:

Emergency Supplies at Home Supplies Sleeping Bags (2) Plastic bucket with lid N95 respirator masks (20) First Aid Kit First Aid Manual Heavy-load Rope (200+ pounds) (3/8" x 100 feet) (2) Light-load Rope (75 pounds) (1/8" x 48 feet) (2) Duffel Bag (2) Lighting Battery-powered Lantern Heavy-Duty Mag Flashlight (D-Cells) Small Flashlight (2) LED Headlamp Chemical Light-sticks (6) (4-year shelf-life) Tea-light Candles (6) 9-hour candles (4) Candle lantern Electricity 50' Power Extension Cord Power Strip with surge protector 400 watt AC inverter in car AA Batteries (20) AAA Batteries (14) C Batteries (6) D Batteries (6) Communications Radio (battery-powered) (AM/FM/Weather/TV) Corded Telephone Portable FRS/GMRS Radios (2) Charger & Rechargeable Batteries for FRS/GMRS Radios Instant Hand Warmers (4) Waterproof Matches (4 boxes) Solar Emergency Blanket (2) Protective goggles (2) Rain Poncho (2) Work Gloves (2) Foam Ear Plugs (2 pair per set) (2 sets) Hammer Crescent Wrench Pliers Plastic Trowel Pens (3) Small notebook Electrical Tape Duct Tape Swiss Army Knife Padlocks with key (2) Playing Cards Plastic tarp Food 3 gallons of water per person (total of 6 gallons) Canned Soup (2) Freeze-dried Ice-cream (2) 72-hour food supply (2) Cat food Veterinarian suggested food (2 cans) Clothing (need more in this area) Sweatshirts (3) Baseball hat Personal Hygiene Toilet Paper (4 rolls) Facial Tissue Moist wipes (50 count) Tums Chewable Antacid Sunscreen SPF-15 (aerosol has longest shelf-life) Insect repellent Antihistamine (Benadryl or similar) Deodorant (2) Disposable Razors (4) Shaving cream Body soap Shampoo Toothbrushes (2) Toothpaste Cooking Propane camping stove Propane fuel canisters (3) Paper plates (54) Paper towels (2 rolls) Aluminum foil (50 square feet) Contractor-grade trash bags for clean-up and sanitation (15 minimum) Manual Can Opener Plastic Cups (50) Plastic Eating-Utensils (16 total) Nalgene bottles (2) Sierra cup (stainless-steel backpacking cup) Katadyn Micropur MP1 water purification tablets (30) Water purification filter Information & Resources Coins & cash Printed Emergency Contacts DVD containing encrypted financial records and home inventory Maps (local and state-wide, free from AAA) San Francisco Bay California Monterey Bay Oakland-Berkeley San Francisco

Posted by Scott at 7:34 AM | Permalink

One of my interests is being prepared for natural and man-made emergencies that may occur in the San Francisco Bay Area. I believe that preparedness should include one's personal finances. Keeping records that are current and available can lead to a quicker recovery and smaller loss.

I have used the Quicken software program from Intuit since 2001 to manage my personal finances. This includes tracking my investments, savings, and monthly bills. Loss or unavailability of Quicken would count as a real emergency for me. For this reason, I make quarterly backups of my Quicken information and keep them off-site

I've decided to use recordable DVDs for my data backups, with the reasons being:

• Highly accessible since most computers contains DVD-ROM drives


• Cheap to produce, at less than $1 per disc (cheaper than magnetic disk drives)


• Resistant to damage from water, magnetic signals, etc (not true for USB flash drives)


• Tamper-proof since the information can't be modified


• Can be encrypted to protect the contents


• Can store up to 8 GB of data, which makes them preferable to CDs.

A popular software program for recording DVDs on the Mac OS X platform is Toast from Roxio. It provides support for encrypted disk images (supported natively in Mac OS X) and disk spanning. I highly recommend it.

The information I include on my backups is:

• VMware Fusion virtual machine of Windows 2003 Server with Quicken program & data


• VMware Fusion installer & serial #


• Home Inventory in Circus Ponies Notebook format


• Home Inventory exported to HTML


• Circus Ponies Notebook installer & serial #


• Text document describing how to use all of these things in a "sh*t hits the fan" scenario

All of these files are stored in a password-protected, AES 256-bit encrypted disk image on the DVD. I'm limited to using a Mac to access my backups, which isn't a huge deal since I have access to Macs at home & work. I make 5 or 6 identical copies of the DVD and keep them in various places that would ensure I'd have at least one copy of the DVD, except in the most dire of circumstances. The encryption is military-grade and is strong enough that I don't lose sleep over not having the disk in my physical possession at all times. It's important to keep off-site copies of this information in case of a fire, theft, hardware failure, or other catastrophe. I repeat this on a quarterly basis since I'd prefer to have a backup no more than 3 months old. Copies of the backups are destroyed one year after creation.

I hope that I never have to actually rely on my backups, but I take comfort in knowing they exist!

Posted by Scott at 4:02 PM | Permalink