Category: Life

Life, Personal and Leisure

Install Plex Media Server on Ubuntu

You can find the latest release listed here and either download the file to your server directly or use the path to update the wget in the commands listed below…
https://plexapp.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201181647-Plex-Media-Server-Linux-nix-

Pre-requisite, you need to have avahi installed first or the script will later prompt you to do so…
sudo apt-get install avahi-daemon

i386 install:
wget -c downloads.plexapp.com/plex-media-server/0.9.8.18.290-11b7fdd/plexmediaserver_0.9.8.18.290-11b7fdd_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i plexmediaserver_0.9.8.18.290-11b7fdd_i386.deb

amd64 install:
wget -c downloads.plexapp.com/plex-media-server/0.9.8.18.290-11b7fdd/plexmediaserver_0.9.8.18.290-11b7fdd_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i plexmediaserver_0.9.8.18.290-11b7fdd_amd64.deb

Then a series of commands, they should all be relatively straight forward. As the installer creates and runs the software under a user named ‘plex’, I create the user folders and change the default password in these steps… do what you are comfortable with!

sudo apt-get -f install
sudo mkdir /home/plex
sudo mkdir /home/plex/Music
sudo mkdir /home/plex/Videos
cd /home/plex
sudo chown plex * -R
sudo chmod 777 * -R
sudo passwd plex

Now you should be able to access the app with your browser, change the IP if you are not on localhost.
http://{ip}:32400/manage/index.html

WARNING: An installation using these steps could leave your server open to the general public, you
will want to password protect your server to secure any sensitive content, I’ll leave that for a separate topic.

REFERENCES:

Enable Sharing of Printers via Apple AirPrint

This is relevant only after you have updated to Apple IOS 4.2.x on your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad device. With this release, the ability to print has been added, but it takes a bit of configuration to setup the printer sharing itself as it relies on the Apple Bonjour service/protocol!

I assume that this is all trivial if you are using a networked printer, particularly if it’s wireless…. but if you have a printer that is shared by another computer on the network, you’ll have to do the following.

  1. Install iTunes 10.1 (or newer) on the PC
  2. Install IOS 4.2.1 (or newer) on the mobile device
  3. Download AirPrint.zip (airprint.exe, libairprint.dll, XpdfPrint.dll)
  4. Unzip it.
  5. Make a folder, “C:\Program Files (x86)\AirPrint\” (NOTE: without the x86 for 32bit)
  6. Copy the files to “C:\Program Files (x86)\AirPrint\” (NOTE: without the x86 for 32bit)
  7. Run “cmd.exe” as administrator
  8. Run the following commands (There should be a space between ‘=’ and ‘”‘)
    • Windows 64bits:
      sc.exe create AirPrint binPath= "C:\Program Files (x86)\AirPrint\airprint.exe -s" depend= "Bonjour Service" start= auto
      sc.exe start AirPrint
    • Windows 32bits:
      sc.exe create AirPrint binPath= "C:\Program Files\AirPrint\airprint.exe -s" depend= "Bonjour Service" start= auto
      sc.exe start AirPrint
  9. Let Windows Firewall allow AirPrint to communicate on the networks (Double click on the airprint.exe)
  10. Now, open Safari or any other printing application on your device and try to Print, the first time will have to select the printer, and you may need to give user credentials for the printer.

REFERENCES:

Cheers!

Viewing Hidden Files and Folders on Apple OS/X

Most operating systems make this rather trivial to expose, Apple seems to have made it just a tiny bit more difficult… as such, I provide the simple steps here for my own memory as well as your benefit.

Open Terminal…

  • Launch Terminal, located at /Applications/Utilities/.
  • Type or copy/paste the following commands. Press the return key after you enter each line. 
    defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
    killall Finder

WARNING: Be particularly careful about the files you modify or delete, you could impact your system in very critical ways… there is a reason they are ‘hidden’, most often it is to keep less-technical users from breaking things 🙂

Return hidden files to their usual state.

Open Terminal…

  • Launch Terminal, located at /Applications/Utilities/.
  • Type or copy/paste the following commands. Press the return key after you enter each line. 
    defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
    killall Finder

Cheers

NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards

As we enter storm season in the US, and storms ‘seem’ to get more intense each year… particularly for those of us that live in tornado territory, it’s often advised to get a “Weather Radio”.

I’d heard about these for years, but never really looked into them… with my communications background, they prove quite interesting. There are over 1000 stations in the US and coverage is pretty good (excellent in my area). Obviously you need a special receiver to receive the broadcasts, VHF requencies are below…
162.400
162.425
162.450
162.475
162.500
162.525
162.550

REFERENCE:

ReplayTV Internet Video Sharing (IVS)

ReplayTV, as a predecessor to the commonly known Tivo had two features that ultimately lead to the companies undoing:

  1. Commercial Advance (automatic)
  2. Internet Video Sharing

Obviously, advertisers did not like the first feature, and movie studios did not like the second. As these boxes could easily share ‘anything’ that they could receive it was/is relatively easy to send video that was captured from cable networks or DVDs over an internet connection.

Mind you that sharing is not as easy as it is over the file sharing networks, user interaction is required to both send and recieve files, and that process is far slower than most people would be willing to wait if they just wanted to ‘pirate’ something.

Several years ago, when I first purchased my unit, it was easy to go to http://www.myreplaytv.com/ to remotely manage my hardware, that service is now gone but in it’s absence there have been some creative solutions.

My ReplayTV (5xxx) ISN: 00004-54831-42373

Test your connection (or mine):
http://www.lhaven.net/ivstest/

Merry Christmas!

Linux kernel updates without reboot

Here’s another great reason to use Linux over Windows.    Ksplice Uptrack provides for runtime patching of the Linux kernel without rebooting of the machine.  This has great advantages where you need to maintain the security of a server but have limited opportunites to reboot due to SLA’s (Service Level Agreements).   Ubuntu Linux was the first supported operating system, other variants are now available too, though often for a fee.

Free Computer Based VOIP

I’ve used a variety of computer based VOIP over the years. My current preference in this space is Skype as it’s free for computer-to-computer calls and even allows calls to and from regular phones (at a fee).

Video and text chat are also provided, as is ‘white-boarding’ with additional plugins.

Skype is available for most platforms, even mobile phones… I’ve found that while the Windows beta versions has some additional features, the Linux release is rock-solid.

http://www.skype.com/

There are also several hardware based solutions, like Vonage, available to replace your traditional phone service… perhaps we’ll cover that later.

Skype me!

Shellback initiation

I first crossed on way from the Persian Gulf to Darwin, Australia on USS Helena (SSN-725) on 22 February 1994 (15 years ago, wow!), Longitude CLASSIFIED!

As is Navy tradition, there were some initiation rituals and a ‘Steel Beach Picnic’ and swim call on the equator.

Now get below decks and swap – Pollywog!