PVR: Upgrades

I stoopeedly hosed the MySQL database on my Myth box the other day (don’t ask). I didn’t feel like spending several hours manually identifying recorded shows. And since I was faced with re-creating all my schedules, essentially starting over, I figured now would be a good time to apply some upgrades.

Previously, I’d managed to upgrade the CPU to the 3.2GHz Celeron and get it working at acceptable temperatures by adding a new slot cooler (the one that came with the Aria case was defective) and installing a Zalman CNPS7000B-AlCu CPU cooler. The box ended up being a little noisier than I wanted but after applying the 7 volt hack* on the slot cooler everything quieted down nicely.

This time out, I wanted to upgrade to the latest version of KnoppMyth (R5C7) and upgrade to a 500GB harddrive.

I had a few problems with the install: It was difficult to install the new drive using only my left arm; I had to burn the install CD twice because the first one was a dud; The new drive wasn’t happy being set to cable select I had to explicitly set the jumper to master.

Once I got passed those hurdles though, the install went swimmingly and with the help of my notes, I was up and running in no time. At the end of the process I ended up netting 460GB of media storage (about 225 hours worth). A nice little upgrade. Maybe I’m showing my age but it still feels a little weird to have half a terabyte of storage sitting in my living room.

* My mod is actually a little different than that article, I installed a switch so I could choose between 7 or 12 volts.

New tacow meeting and location announced!

We’ve posted the details for next tacow meeting. It will be held on July 11th and the big news is that we have a new location. The amazing folks at Ryerson University have graciously offered to host our meeting. This gives us a much more accessible location, close to the subway, a plethora of eateries, and just a few short blocks from the Eaton Centre Apple Store.

Mark Ritchie has agreed to give the presentation and this is the last tacow meeting before WWDC. Everyone is invited, so I hope to see you there. If you plan on attending please RSVP from the tacow site

New Beginnings

A while ago I mentioned I was starting a new gig. A little over a year later and my full-time involvement in that clients projects is coming to an end. In that post I mentioned that I would continue doing other work and so I have. In fact the volume of my independent projects has grown significantly over the past year.

So, as of June 30th, my full-time focus will be Codeferous Software.

I will miss working with this team, they’re a great bunch and I’ll miss them. I won’t however, miss working double-time to get all my projects completed and the constant sense that there isn’t enough time in the day to finish everything…

Ha! As if that is going to change.

FrogPad Tip

I just had a forehead smacking moment…

When using a FrogPad, rather than hitting key combinations in sequence, you chord them (hit them at the same time). For example: Play the letter "M" by hitting the [Space] and the [W] keys simultaneously rather than typing [Space] then [W].

I feel like such an idiot, but this one simple realization has nearly doubled my speed.