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Sitebar bookmarks session problem workaround

Sitebar is the greatest bookmark manager, I run my own server and once again control my own destiny! Check it out if you are interested in a great LAMP bookmarking solution. After you set up your own server, make sure you get the Firefox plugin! Or roll your own version, like I did on my portal.

Recently, I kept having to re-login because my session information kept getting lost. My workaround was to add my server domain to Firefox’s Tools->Options->Privacy->Cookies->Exceptions list, to “always allow”. I had to add the “second level domain” (without the “www”) to get it to work.

I’m very happy now with the latest stable version (3.3.9), but I’ll probably jump on 3.4 when it becomes marked as “stable”, soon… then I can have fun with stuff like this!

Comments | Tuesday, October 23, 2007 [ bookmarks * sitebar ]

Setting MythTV channel names

For some reason I haven’t seen this in the various MythTV HowTo’s:

mythfilldatabase --do-channel-updates

Note that this will wipe out any customizations you’ve done to channels. (continued…)

Comments | Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Music streaming on linux Part 1: Ampache

It’s time to move another step into the digital age.

I’ve worked for years on my HangTheDJ mp3 player, and it’s provided me with countless hours of pure bliss, playing a constant stream of mp3’s just right for the mood I happen to be in. But it’s time for a reassessment.

The problem: information organization. In the digital age, get organized or drown. The only practical solution to getting organized is to store all digital media in a central location. Then stream what you need from the central store to where you are. (continued…)

Comments | Thursday, June 21, 2007 [ ampache ]

Video editing on linux Part 1: Cinelerra

I have set a goal of importing all our home video (yes all the raw footage, hours of us staring at the camera :>) and incorporating it into the mythtv experience.

First step: get a clue. Looks like cinelerra is the FOSS advanced video editing software of choice, even though everyone seems to agree it’s been opened with a bad can opener and you’ll probably slice yourself on it now and then. The first hurdle: getting it installed. As always, gentoo makes things dead-easy, but there were a couple steps to get it to compile under AMD64, here they are so you don’t bang your head:

emacs /etc/portage/package.keywords
  media-video/cinelerra-cvs ~amd64
emacs /etc/portage/package.use
  media-video/cinelerra-cvs -mmx
emerge -DavuN cinelerra-cvs

Note that this is a package pulled from cvs, a first sign to proceed with caution. The date on the most recent package is 20070122 – apparently the developer of cinelerra doesn’t work too closely with the community, and the community developers have to occasionally take a snapshot and clean the hell up out of it – so you don’t want it to happen too often. The gentoo package compiles fine on AMD64, but only if you specifically disable mmx support (weird, eh?). Anyway, as always, upwards and onwards…

Comments | Sunday, June 10, 2007 [ cinelerra ]

Moving to Gentoo 2007.0

I continue my love affair with Gentoo by moving to the latest profile, 2007.0. Profiles are sort of watermarks that are released every 6 months or so. They prevent major upgrades to your system, until you’re ready to make the leap to a new profile. Once again, very well done, Gentoo dudes. I’ve got three Gentoo machines at this point, and I’ve migrated two with zero problems. The only real change for me was that I learned to use dispatch-conf with rcs (which gives you version-controlled automated configuration updates, whoop!) instead of the more clumsy etc-update. Oh, and it looks like the gnome terminal configuration file format changed, as my settings are no longer valid. But mythtv is rocking along, no problems. I even managed to upgrade the TV recordings drive from a 250GB to a 400GB sata drive along the way. Party on.

UPDATE: I had the gnome-terminal problem on two different machines. A re-emerge fixed it up:

emerge -av gnome-terminal