xPLGamePort2 Released

I've released xPLGamePort2 which doesn't require DirectX to be installed. Can't wait to try it out on the thin client, which is due to arrive Friday. It's identical in functionality to the original version. More details here.

Working on New xPLGameport App

With the HP T5700 thin client on the way, I decided to rewrite my xPLGameport app to better fit into the compact memory requirements. My current version requires DirectX and that may or may not installable on the T5700 with 256MB of flash. So I've put together a version that uses the joystick hooks in winmm.dll and it's currently running. I've got a few days to test it before the thin client arrives.

Not Much Going On

I haven't been doing a whole lot lately. Part of that is a little HA burnout from my manic March. Part of that is a little disappointment over SageTV and the smushed screen. That's been finally resolved after beta updates of the server and the HD Theater firmware.

I did make the decision to turn off HAL Deluxe. It's always been a resource pig occasionally prone to 100% CPU attacks. The lack of voice mail functionality due to it crapping itself after a Windows update didn't help. And my failed experiment with microphone VR put another nail in the coffin.

Of course, turning off HAL comes with great benefits - lots of free memory and more stability. My two HALi apps also get turned off as well. The extra resources is letting me play with SageTV on my HA server. I moved the 1.5TB disk from the DVR machine to the HA server, migrated my SageTV settings over and have been running for a couple days. It's not a CPU pig but it is as fat as HAL. I've seen it well over 200MB and that has me thinking of bumping the HA server memory from 2GB to 4GB. The DVR machine will probably move over to our other house as the machines there are a little slow.

Finally, I snagged an HP T5700 (256MB RAM & flash) thin client off eBay 60 bucks (less 14% Live cashback and 1% FatCash). I'm going to see if I can use these as little xPL boxes. I want to distribute them around the house where I don't have enough wiring to support all the inputs I want to add to the system. For example, I want to move 3 current switches from DS10a's to a gameport (and add a few more contact closures). I don't have enough wiring there to get those outputs to the wiring closet nor is there enough wiring to put a gameport there using Cat-5 USB extenders. I thought about USB over IP devices but they cost twice as much as a thin client and obviously have much less functionality.

xPL EG Plugin Update

Did some code clean up on the plugin a week ago. The sendxPL task now only takes 1 argument for the xPL command. Latest plugin here.

To Cacti or Not To Cacti

I spent a few hours Saturday playing around with Cacti. It's a front end to RRDTool, which I already use to generate charts. It was easy to get up & running as I'm already using PHP, MySQL and Apache on my server. After only a few hours adding devices and setting up graphs, I decided it wasn't for me. I'm already very comfortable writing my own Perl scripts and using Net-SNMP to extract the statistics and build the graphs I want. Cacti adds a couple layers on top of that, and to me, the interface takes too many clicks to get what I want. Plus, I don't plan on using it to graph my 1Wire temps or SpeedFan stats - it'd just be yet another interface to go through.

Use OpenDNS to Thwart Conficker

You should have heard about Conficker by now. One way to help mitigate its effects is to use OpenDNS for your DNS servers. I've been a big fan of OpenDNS for years and this is yet another reason to use it.

HA Server Power Supply Problem

It appears my Antec EarthWatts power supply is failing. It took a few days to diagnose the problem as the server as having some random reboots and then problems coming back up after the reboot. There was nothing in the event log, so I swapped out some drive cables and hard drives thinking it was a drive issue. It seemed stable for a day or two but then I got another random reboot. I took the power supply out of my kid's PC and the server's been up & running since Tuesday. I've got a couple 250W 80Plus power supplies coming this week (one for the HA server and one for the DVR) so my kid can have his PC back.

HD Theater Smushed Screens

The family room TV is a 10 year old Sony 36XBR250 which has a vertical compression feature. There is a bug in the HDTheater firmware that activates that in the Sony so the menus are squished and the fonts are not very readable in things like the program guide. Supposedly, there will be a fix, but in the next beta of the server software. In the meantime, the family room unit won't be getting much play.

SageTV Coupon Code

As luck would have it, 4 days after I ordered my 2 HD Theaters and SageTV software, they are offering a coupon code for $20 off the HD Theater and $25 off the bundle. Argh. I've sent them an email and asked if they can give me an adjustment since I just dropped $500 on their stuff. We'll see...

The code for their online store @ http://www.sagetv.com is MMAD09 and expires April 1st.

Update: I received this email from them:

Unfortunately this coupon is for orders from 3-26-09 to 4-1-09.

Had I not ordered until today, I would have gotten one more HD Theater. SageTV is definitely no SlimDevices.

Sage, SqueezeCenter, SliMP3 and xPL

With 2 HDTheaters on the way, I've been working on ways to use our new SageTV DVR server as a third client for playback. I don't have an IR receiver for the PC and since I'm keeping costs low, I'm not going to buy one. However, it just so happens there's a SliMP3 by the TV that the DVR is connected to and they work great as IR receivers. But how do I get the IR from the SliMP3? That's easy! I already have SqueezeCenter & its xPL plugin running. Plus the xPL plugin's "Infra-red Processing" option is configured to "Both". This gets me xPL messages issued when any remote buttons are pressed.

I also had installed EventGhost on the DVR and added my xPL Plugin to it. The next step was to capture the EventGhost events that result from xPL messages that result from remote control button presses. With that, I created macros triggered by those events and had EventGhost issue keystrokes in response. As a test, I used an old TiVo remote and mapped the navigation and select buttons to keystrokes for up, down, left, right and enter. The result is this video that shows both the EG and SageTV windows while I use the TiVo remote to navigate around the SageTV interface:

DVR Server Update

The E5200 based DVR server is looking really good. With the 2 hard drives, it idles around 50 watts and gets up to about 90 watts playing a 1080i HD stream in SageTV through the onboard graphics. During playback, it used about 30% of 1 CPU. That means there's plenty of horsepower for it to do much more. I'm planning on moving SqueezeCenter and MediaNet over to it, but neither of those is CPU intensive. I need to see what other functions I can move over from the HA server. The cheap AirLink gig NIC works great. I was able to sustain 400 Mbps transfers between the DVR & HA server.

Update: I just purchased my SageTV license and 2 HD Theaters.

Slowly Piecing Together a Bargain DVR System

I just picked up an E5200 bundle from Fry's for $99. The E5200 is a 45nm processor that has low power consumption and pretty good horsepower compared to the Core2 E7300 (See review here). This goes nicely with the $85 1.5TB Seagate Drive I scored last month, the 2GB of of memory for $7 and the $3 Airlink gigabit NIC. I have a $19 MicroATX case, a spare $19 Seagate 200GB IDE drive for the boot drive (Staples Black Friday deal several years ago), and a spare $6 Antec 120mm Tricool fan. It will be running a free copy of Server 2003 courtesy of Microsoft DreamSpark and my wife who's taking a night class which qualifies her to get some free MS software. I just need an 80Plus power supply. I have a regular spare that I can use to get the system set up, but for the long-term, I'm going to find an high-efficiency power supply for this. Total cost so far is about $250 with the power supply left to buy.