MythTV In A Window

In episode 4 of the MythTV Podcast a listener asked about displaying MythTV in a window instead of consuming the entire desktop. This can be done using the -geometry parameter on the mythtv and mythfrontend commands. Below is a screen shot of my desktop using the following command mythfrontend -geometry 800x450.

 

South East Linux Fest 2009

The inaugural South East Linux Fest was held June 13, 2009 at the Clemson University Hendrix Student Center. The turn out was great. The event was very well organized. Tip of the hat to Dave Yates and everyone that had a hand in putting this event together. There were 20 sessions if you include the two keynotes. I attended the following:

Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier

openSUSE - Joe's keynote jump started the event with flying Geekos and discussion on the openSUSE project.

Mark Spencer

Digium - The creator of GAIM (renamed Pidgin), Asterisk and founder of Digium shared his insight and experiences growing Digium.

Brian Leonard

OpenSolaris - Brian demonstrated how to quickly create and deploy desktop and web applications using the Netbeans IDE. He then showed how to test those applications on various operating systems using VirtualBox. These are some very powerful tools that I use almost everyday. An overview of Developing Beyond Localhost can be found here.

Peter Graner

Ubuntu Kernel - Peter discussed the structure of the Ubuntu kernel team and the kernel development life cycle. He touched on the small differences from from Linus' tree. This session had the most technical nuggets of the sessions I attended. Very interesting stuff. You can review Peter's The Ubuntu Kernel slides here.

Chris DiBona

Google - Chris's talk about Google's use and promotion of open source software was informative and entertaining. Chris is very witty and had the crowd rolling with laughter. He discussed a few of Google's open source products GWT, Android and Wave. A special thanks for Google for GWT. I use it for Intranet applications at work. GWT enables me to deploy AJAX application without worrying about cross browser issues in a language I'm familiar with, Java.

Chad Wollenberg

Open Source in Education - Chad gave a passionate talk about his success in implementing open source software solutions in education. Open source software has saved Mecklenburg County Schools in Virginia many thousands of dollars. He had great tips on how to plant the seeds of open source software in education.

Semmy Purewal

Building Community-based Technology Centers with FOSS - Semmy Purewal is a visiting Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at the College of Charleston and a founding member of Free IT Athens. He discussed his experiences in providing low income communities with low cost computing using recycled computers, volunteers and open source software. His current project, the Gussie Greene Technology Center in North Charleston SC, is close to my home. Grassroots activism at its finest.

Paul Frields

Fedora - The day closed with Paul discussing Fedora's community and its relationship with Red Hat.

It was good to associate faces with the various podcasters that were in attendance. I'm looking forward to next year's South East Linux Fest. Congratulations SELF organizers!

MythTV Backend Microblogs

My MythTV backend now microblogs. To see what my MythTV backend has recently recorded visit its Identi.ca acount.

Thanks to Mark for his blog entry Posting MythTV recordings to a Laconica server.

MythTV Backend PC Gutted

I implanted new vital organs in my 5 year old PC. The Ubuntu MythTV backend's life has been extended. The surgery was painless. CPU, motherboard, power supply, graphics card, and memory are all functioning perfectly in the old body.

• AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor


• GIGABYTE GA-MA790X-UD4P AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard


• G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK


• Galaxy - NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT 512MB DDR3 Low-Profile PCI Express Graphics Card


• Antec - EarthWatts 650-Watt ATX CPU Power Supply