Archive for December, 2007

Firefly Media Server

Posted by Rob in Computers on Sat Dec 29, 2007

My MacBook Pro has been gradually taking over primary-computer-and-storage responsibilities (photos, music, web browsing, etc.). The laptop gets periodically backed up to my main always-on Linux server.

One side effect of the Mac-ification of my life is that my music collection became iTunes-ified. To get my Windows machine into the program, I had to throw out Winamp and install iTunes for Windows.

I started importing all the music into the Windows iTunes, but then realized I’d have to do a re-import every time I added more music. What a drag. Then I noticed that the Windows iTunes was displaying the MacBook under “Shared Music”. That was when the light bulb went on – I should be able to set up an iTunes server on the Linux machine. Then the Windows machine could just remotely play everything and automatically stay up to date with no import pain, since the Linux machine gets a direct backup of everything.

Enter Firefly Media Server (formerly known as mt-daapd). All my research indicated I’d have to download and compile stuff from Apple, ugh. But those articles were all at least 3 years old. Forging ahead:

% aptitude install mt-daapd

I started the ornerous task of dealing with Rendezvous.tar.gz from Apple when out of the corner of eye, I noticed that everything was already working, playlists and all!

[photo]

Quite possibly my least-painful Linux experience ever.

Unfortunately, mythmusic on the MythTV machine lacks a DAAP client, so I’m still stuck synchronizing files over (and using mythmusic’s horrible GUI). Ideally I’d set it up to look like an AirPort Express with AirTunes so that I can push my laptop iTunes to the living room speakers, but apparently there is some still-uncracked encryption involved that prevents this from being a reality.

1 Comment

‘Rents in SF

Posted by Rob in Photos, Rants & Raves on Sun Dec 23, 2007

The parents came to visit us in SF for a change (usually we fly to see them); we took them to Golden Gate Park, Land’s End, the V.A. Medical Center, and Ocean Beach.

[photo]

I did notice two quirks of Mac behavior that were inferior to my former Windows digital-photo workflow:

  • The Canon PowerShot SD800IS provides the proper EXIF orientation information in its photos, but the embedded thumbnails are incorrect (or at least, the Mac Finder gets it wrong and shows all thumbnails in landscape orientation).
  • When importing photos from the camera, iPhoto generates filesystem timestamps using the time of import rather than with the time the photo was taken (the SD card filesystem timestamp of the image is not preserved).

I discovered the joy that is jhead, conveniently available as a MacPort:

  • Fix thumbnail orientation: jhead -autorot *
  • Fix filesystem timestamps to match EXIF information: jhead -ft *

jhead isn’t truly nerdcore: instead of linking with the jpegtran library, it assumes a pre-existing installation of the jpegtran programs and just calls system(3). Kind of lame, but whatever; it gets the job done.

3 Comments

Hitman

Posted by Rob in Movies on Sat Dec 15, 2007

Hitman is based on a video game, so not much needs to be said about expectations, etc. Resident Evil remains my gold standard for video-game-based movies, and Hitman was no Resident Evil. It was, however, better than Street Fighter and Double Dragon (but that’s not saying much).

My one gripe was with the casting. The video game art shows a totally bad-ass dude with a shaved head.

[Agent 47]

The movie cast a very baby-faced Timothy Oliphant:

[Oliphant]

I’m sorry, but Oliphant’s face is not one I’d take seriously. Just about any other actor in the movie would have made a better Agent 47: Vin Diesel (the producer), James Faulkner, and any of the other Agent-47-fodder “hitmen”.

2 Comments

Kooza

Posted by Rob in Rants & Raves on Wed Dec 5, 2007

[photo]

We went to see Kooza by AT&T Park. It is a touring show that focuses on classical circus acts – trapeze, tightrope, juggling, and some other daredevil acts with interesting props.

The SF Weekly implies that the recent touring shows have focused too much on the non-circus spectacle stuff. Of the standing shows in Las Vegas that I’ve seen, Kooza is more similar to Mystere (circus acrobatics) than it is to O (spectacle), which is consistent with their view.

One of the tightrope performers slipped (but caught the rope and pulled himself back up). The SF Weekly mentions this as well, so they either watched the same performance (and published the article a week later), or the performer perhaps slips every night to inject some drama into the act (kind of like going to NASCAR hoping to see a crash).

The juggling act was pretty good, but the crowd was the quietest for this act. It was kind of tough for me to experience a silent audience, but I imagine that San Francisco, with more than its fair share of MIT Juggling Club alumni, might be harder to impress. On the other hand, he did get the most applause at the conclusion of his act, so maybe everyone was just rapt with attention.

I liked the music a lot (Indian-themed) and actually wanted to buy a soundtrack CD on the way out – the saleslady told me that CDs wouldn’t be for sale until next year. WTF?

1 Comment

American Gangster

Posted by Rob in Movies on Sun Dec 2, 2007

This movie is long (2:40) and was probably longer before cutting. It is your basic “historical drama” – based on the true story of a drug kingpin in the 1970s.

I think the movie was marketed as, and I expected to see, a cop-vs.-gangster movie a la Pacino/DeNiro in Heat. However, the movie digressed into too many side stories (perhaps in the pursuit of historical narrative, or tribute to its still-living main characters), which ended up diluting the basic cops-vs.-robbers story.

[photo]

I saw this at the new “Sundance Kabuki” (formerly known as AMC Kabuki) theater. The theater has been renovated and is actually quite nice now, although it has lost some of its “old theater” character.

1 Comment