An HD antenna (the one on the left is a 4-bay. I use a 2-bay, but it depends no how much room you have)
An HDTV with an ATSC tuner OR a CRT tv with a digital decoder box (quality will suffer but you will get channels)
Patience

Basic setup: attach a coax cable from the antenna to the antenna input on your TV. Position the antenna where you want… Here is where you have options. This all comes down to what you have available. For best results – mount the antenna as high as possible (rooftop) and be prepared to adjust the position based on scanning results. Multi directional antennas can aid this process or if you have a premium antenna that allows for remote adjustment, that’s even better. On a much more simplistic level, I personally use a 2-bay antenna that I have just outside of a window on a ledge where it fits perfectly. There are indoor antennas you can use too but the results may not be as good.

Once the antenna is attached and positioned, go to your TV and select the channel feature in the menu (it will differ from one tv to another) and then select ‘scan’. Wait until this process finishes and then you can go through the channels to see which ones you get and how clear they are. The following factors will affect how many channels and the clarity: positioning of antenna, quality of antenna, weather, line of sight, strength of over the air signals (positioning of your residence in terms of whether it is up on a hill which is better or in a gully, and how far away it is from the signal, as well as whether you are surrounded by large buildings).

The most important thing about setting up a HDTV antenna is to keep in mind that there are many factors that affect results in terms of stations and quality. The bottom line is “you will get, what you get!” If you want more stations or better quality, then get the antenna up higher, position it better (you must rescan each time you reposition the antenna if you want to check to see if it picked up more stations), or failing all of that… move!

You will not get as many stations as you will get with cable or satellite, however; the HD stations you should get will come in very clear in most likely 1080i video and HD audio. The quality in my experience is amazing! I use it to watch football and primetime specials mostly. The internet is the optimal choice for anything else in my opinion. The cost is very minimal. My antenna was roughly $20. They can get quite expensive. I have found in general that I’ve had the best luck with the wired antennas as you see pictured above. Results will, of course, differ from person to person as there are many variables. Some say they can get about 40-50 stations including many HD. I personally get about 20 including about 6 or 7 HD stations. I am very content with that. I am also quite content with not spending $80 or more for a bunch of stations I never watch and I feel good about not giving money to unsavoury companies.

My question is – does Google really want to portray this image? Going out on a limb and saying it was unintentional makes me question the quality control of the not only the website, but also of the device itself.

I have been praising and promoting this device to others for weeks on end. Now it will stop. Will Google fix this or will it be ignored?

Open a terminal
Type Firefox -P
Select to create a new profile (I called mine alt)
Open Firefox with that new profile and visit the Gnome Extensions Website

You should be able to install your extensions from there now. I have to assume that there is some sort of miscommunication between my older profile for Firefox and the Gnome Shell Extensions website after the upgrade. Firefox moved to version 16 so perhaps this is somehow the reason why. Regardless, this is a decent workaround for now. If I find something more concrete, I will post it later.

Update — See the comment below which indicates that if you have “click to play” enabled in your about:config in Firefox, then it will cause this issue. Thanks for the contribution!

Rooting your Le Pan TC970: see this link

Why Root? Mainly access to system settings you wouldn’t normally have and you can do proper full backups.

Then after rooting, you can upgrade your tablet to gingerbread and cyanogenmod at that, which is even more customized. This is in beta 5 at the time of writing this, so be sure to download whichever is newest and best rated. There were still a couple of functions not perfectly working at the time of beta 5 so when you check, you’ll need to decide if those are dealbreakers or not for you.

Here is the link to the xda developers site with instructions: Grab them cakes!

** The pic shows a different launcher than the default ADW which I generally consider a mess, I much prefer Go Launcher Ex.

Instructions on how to update wxwidgets along with other packages can be found on the wxpython wiki page. I upgraded these packages on three separate Ubuntu machines and the issue disappeared. I am now able to drag and drop directories without any crashing on Filezilla. Hopefully Ubuntu decides to update these associated packages to resolve it. All that is really necessary is to do sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get upgrade and it will upgrade 2 packages and that fixes the issue.

As always with any software upgrade, it’s up to you to try it out if you want. The instructions are very easy and it did fix the annoyance for me on 3 machines. I can’t say what impact upgrading may have on other installed packages but my issue with Filezilla is resolved so I’m happy.

Here is what was needed to do to get mpd running again…

You can either do this via command line with your favorite text editor or via a graphical environment.

Command line: sudo nano /etc/mpd.conf

Graphical: sudo gedit /etc/mpd.conf

1 – Delete or comment out the error_log line in your /etc/mpd.conf:

previous line:
error_file        “/home/username/.mpd/errors.log”

after the change:
#error_file        “/home/username/.mpd/errors.log”

Keep in mind that your directory choices in the quotes may differ but that is a non issue. Once that is done, save the file. The next thing to do is to recreate your entire database for mpd. This has never been necessary before after an upgrade, but it could be due to changes in mpd or Ubuntu.

You can do this upgrade a few different ways. If you run a graphical front end like Sonata or GMPC, you need to first make sure that you are connected to mpd. Lastly, you need to update the entire database. This will take some time depending on the size of your collection. You could alternatively do this from command line by using the command: mpd –create-db. If that doesn’t work as a normal user, you may need to sudo mpd –create-db. After the database updates, you should be able to play your tunes as before. All in all, it is a fairly simple fix, but something that could be quite frustrating if you aren’t aware of it.

Ubuntu 11.04 is getting very mixed reviews and primarily because of Canonical’s decision to go with Unity which has been used on their netbook version but is now making its way to the desktop. My laptop has been my testing ground for the newer Ubuntu versions of the past few years. Much like any other time, I upgraded to the development version (this time I held off till Alpha 3). Unlike the previous early preview experiences, Unity was a major difference. I can tolerate instability including kernel panics as a by product of being an early adopter, but Unity was a whole different story. I used it for 3 weeks and tried to get used to it, but it just didn’t suit me.

After deciding that I would probably never be able to use Unity on a day to day basis and considering, I was already on a beta version of Natty at this point, I decided I would give Gnome 3 a try. Despite being a bit reluctant after my Unity experience, I dove into Gnome 3 anyway. What I found was a robust, logical, aesthetically pleasing and flashy desktop experience. Granted, Gnome 3 is not perfected and I am using the PPA which is getting updated often. I truly believe that Gnome 3 will be the desktop environment of the future. It would probably have been a better idea to stick with Gnome 2 for 11.04 and then try for Gnome 3 for 11.10.

Natty seems to be the most lacklustre Ubuntu release in many years. So who is to blame? There are claims that performance is between 10 and 26% slower on Natty.  The particular kernel version was blamed for this. Unity has received some blame as well for the tepid enthusiasm for Ubuntu 11.04. Ultimately, while Canonical doesn’t manufacture the software packages itself, it is still their decision as a company how to put together the finished product. While I don’t think Ubuntu 11.04 is a disaster, it definitely seems like it will quiet Ubuntu evangelists like myself from recommending it to new users. I would still recommend Ubuntu, but I would have to go with 10.10. The trouble with recommending a previous version is that the Ubuntu website not only links to Natty but also has screenshots and information showing Unity which could be a detraction.

Download Ubuntu 10.10

On another note, Strikeforce, since being purchased by Zuffa, is no longer permitted to have amateur fights. Shame. Strikeforce’s amateur fights were often more entertaining than The Ultimate Fighter professional bouts.

Edit: At the time I wrote this originally, by installing Gnome 3, it meant that I could no longer run Unity nor Gnome 2, as of now (June), this is no longer the case. All 3 seem to run fine.

Here are the command line entries to perform the upgrade:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell

After the install, by default, there is an accessibility icon at the top right, if you want to get rid of it, follow these instructions:
remove accessibility icon. Scroll down to the section on NoA11y and follow those instructions.

Phil Baroni can break your heart. The “New York Badass” has only shown a glimmer of his former self in the Octagon. The brash young fighter who emerged in the UFC by storm appears to be a thing of the past and fans who remember his early days will definitely see the glaring contrast. If a chiseled physique could win a fight, then Baroni may very well be champ, but clearly in some cases, hard training and dedication are not enough. Baroni looked great for part of the first round having most of his success with grappling and takedowns, despite being known for his knockout prowess, but eventually was caught by the young former TUF contestant Brad Tavares and finished in the first round. Losing to an up comer with considerably less experience is devastating for a guy like Baroni who admitted that he has no idea what else to do as a career other than fight. This most recent defeat and especially considering the method in which it ended, will likely result in Baroni being fired from the UFC. Despite all of the perceived negatives, this could be a good thing for Baroni. People pay to be entertained. If Baroni is fired and lands a spot on another roster with slightly less experienced and less skilled fighters, he can make a name for himself once again and use his Badass persona to gain more attention and sponsorship money. Either way, the ending has not yet been written but considering Baroni’s candor, a documentary film about his journey could end up being his biggest money maker when he’s done.

Having picked Jeremy Stephens to win against Marcus Davis was looking like a fool’s errand for the majority of the fight but eventually Stephens came through with a knockout half way through the third round. Stephens will maintain his spot in the UFC, but the real question is about Davis. Davis has been through many battles and surely his body is not what it used to be. The Irish hand grenade recently cut down to 155 in hopes of rejuvenating his career but it wasn’t enough against the tough Stephens who withstood Davis attack long enough for the knockout. The UFC will probably keep Davis around for another fight or two to let him adjust more to the new weight. The question is who will he fight next? My suggestion is one of the WEC guys on the verge of being cut.

Clay Guida had yet another impressive performance in finishing Takanori Gomi in the second round via guillotine choke. The most comical portion of the fight was hearing Joe Rogan sound legitimately surprised by Clay Guida’s movement. Joe – you’ve said that for every other one of his fights in the past. No need to feign surprise here. Guida is stuck in lightweight division limbo. He’s not in line for a title only because the lightweight title picture is a mess but he deserves to fight guys ranked at least in the top 5.

Dong Hyun Kim defeated Nate Diaz by outworking the trash talking brother of brawl inducing Nick Diaz. Kim outworked and out muscled Diaz for a decision. Maybe Diaz should have accepted the handshake offered by Kim at the weigh-ins instead of insisting on the nose to nose confrontation.

Brandon Vera has been creeping up on it for a while and he’s finally succeeded… at being the biggest false promiser in MMA today. He was talented and dominating when he first came on the UFC scene, even saying he wanted to be champion in two different weight divisions at the same time. Those days are over. Instead we get Vera who comes in and promises to deliver, be better than his last fight, he’s a changed man, he’s been humbled and now he is really taking his training seriously. Once again, Vera lost his most recent fight. There is no shame in losing to Thiago Silva, despite it being Silva’s first fight since back surgery and a one year layoff. Silva may be champion one day. The shame for Vera lies in not delivering for his fans, his camp or himself. Moreso, it’s for his bold promises before all of his fights that fail to come to fruition. There was no sense of urgency on Vera’s behalf in this fight. This was not the old Brandon Vera as we were all promised. To make matters worse, Vera made comments about underestimating Jon ‘Bones’ Jones and divulging to the media that he was goading Jone’s while under him receiving elbows to his head. “Is that all you got?” Then Jones struck again and the fight was over. Vera promised that we would never allow himself to be in such a situation again. Despite Vera’s words, this is precisely what happened. Silva mounted Vera throughout the fight with ease and Vera displayed no sense of urgency to get back to his feet as promised. Silva even paddled Veras ears with humiliating handslaps at one point. Brandon Vera was the biggest loser on this card by far for a number of reasons.

Brian Stann called out Chris Leben for a fist fight and that’s exactly what fans received. To Stann’s utmost credit, he stood and traded with the brawler but did so intelligently by landing more accurate strikes and eventually finishing the fight. Leben did his best frankenstein impersonation by getting back up several times after being rocked and knocked down by Stann which was impressive in its own right. Stann was probably the biggest winner on the night. He was the underdog, he backed up his words to call out Leben, best entrance music (Five Finger Death Punch – Hard to See) and he stood and traded as promised and put on a great performance. Stann deserves someone in the top 5 next.

The Edgar vs Maynard 2 fight lived up to its top billing in every way. This is a must see fight. Maynard knocked down Edgar numerous times in the first round and shockingly, Edgar continued to battle and eventually recovered. It was miraculous that he escaped the first round. Maynard had blown his wad in the first round and got dominated in the second round though. In the third, fourth and fifth rounds, things were fairly even but I had felt that Edgar was the more aggressive fighter, moved forward more often and was trying to find openings the entire time. Judges had the fight 48-46 Maynard, 48-46 Edgar and 47-47 to result in a draw. Anthony Pettis had been promised the winner and this was confirmed at the post fight press conference, but Dana later changed his mind and has decided on an immediate rematch which is the right choice in the eyes of many. As disappointing that may for Pettis (who thought Edgar won the fight), it might not be too long before this happens. In the meantime, Pettis should be given the choice to wait or stay active.

All in all, it was a great event and the prelims were aired free on the ION channel which surely gained a ton of publicity by agreeing to show the fights on short notice by agreeing to terms with Dana. Surely the UFC team are pleased with an auspicious start to 2011.

Let’s start with opening a file…

I used a hi definition file with an mkv container. Many of the files today that are hi def come in this format which cannot be played natively on PS3 or the Xbox 360.

Go ahead and select safe mode. You will notice that after the file opens you will have some drop down menus on the left hand side which are set as default:

After you get this screen, you will need to change each drop down menu accordingly. The first is for video which needs to be changed to Mpeg-4 AVC which is the x264 codec. This is the same type of codec used in the source file but it is the mkv container that is not compatible with many modern players.

The next step is to select “Configure” under the video option which should now read Mpeg-4 AVC. It will pop up a box with several tabs. Simply, you only need to change one main option. Next to the encoding mode, you can pick different options. You can experiment if you like but if you want to keep as much quality as possible, it is best to select a 2 pass option. I prefer to choose “Two Pass – Average Bitrate”.  In this example, I am using 3000 which is a pretty safe bet for most encodes. You may want to decrease it slightly for animation or increase it slightly for darker or fast paced action movies. If you start off with a 1080p source file and your aim to produce a 720p file, you will need to resize. I will cover that later, but you can look for yourself under “Filters” and the Mplayer resize if you want to try it out.

Here is a shot of what the pop up looks like when you click on “Configure” next to video…

Now that the video is all set, let’s move on to the audio. First select AAC (faac) from the drop down menu. Then if you click on configure under the audio option, you will be able to select the bitrate. I pick the highest available which as mentioned previously is 384 kb/s so far. I will try to find a way to select something higher lately but this could be a limitation of the application for now. Here is what your audio bitrate should look like:

Now the only thing missing is how to get 5.1 sound. Once you ok the bitrate, you need to then click on “Filters”. You will get a new screen that gives you the option to select 5.1 audio. Here is what it looks like:

This will ensure that you will get 5.1 audio from your encode. Once you have all the settings done, you can click on File > Save > Save Video. Make sure you name the extension as .mp4 and then let it go. The amount of time it will take to encode will vary greatly depending on the size of the file, the speed of the computer and whether you have other processes running. Once completed, you should have a fully natively compatible Hi Definition file ready to play on your PS3, Xbox 360, computer or any other player that supports this format.

Happy encoding!

This can be tried out using a live cd and not even installing, dual booting with another operating system or installing standalone.

Too bloated – Ubuntu now comes in many flavors and for anyone who is at least at an intermediate level, turning off or even removing unneeded services or applications should not be an issue.

Slow compared to other distros – aside from the previous point, Ubuntu has also sped up its boot time quite a bit with the Jaunty Jackalope 9.04 release.

Not enough packages available – with the usage of universe and multiverse, you can obtain just about any application you need.

Bloated default kernel – Ubuntu has improved its core kernel quite a bit over the years and there is a way to recompile the default Ubuntu kernel to suit your needs if you are that picky (if Im not doing it, you probably don’t need to).

Not flashy enough – Ubuntu’s use of compiz and it’s improved grub splash image are sleek and seemless.

64 bit – Ubuntu’s 64 bit version is as polished as any other distros these days.

Community – Ubuntu has a wealth of information on their forums that is useful not only for Ubuntu for other Linux distros.

Benchmarking – when anyone does benchmarking, Ubuntu is the version that just about everyone uses so you get to see what your OS can do and how it compares.

Safe upgrading – Although Ubuntu doesn’t have a rolling release style of upgrading, it does have a graphical upgrade tool (update-manager) which makes moving to the next major release quite painless. I have thoroughly used Ubuntu through alpha, beta and offical releases and I can say that by the time the official release comes around, there are fewers issues upgrading with Ubuntu than even its own derivatives.

I’ve been a long time user of a distro that afforded me all of the control I wanted over the years, but ultimately, now after several years of Ubuntu polishing, that control is no longer an advantage. It’s time to make the switch. At this time, there is no other distro that meets the mark on as many levels as the product of Canonical. It’s clear that they are here to stay and have conjured up a well oiled machine that continues to glide smoothly across the Linux landscape. Ubuntu is not just worthy of converting Windows users, it is worthy of converting most Linux users.

If you happen to have any video files that are 720p and in an MKV (mastoska video) container, you will soon find out that your PS3 will not play them.

There are various arguments on the net about using MKV as a video container. Apparently it offers a bit more versatility in terms of encoding options so the vast majority of hi-res videos are done in the .mkv file extension.

I found a fast and easy way to fix this problem. I use a program called MKV2VOB. Unfortunately it only seems to work well enough in Windows. I tried it in Wine but it wouldn’t even open properly. If anyone knows of an app that will work in Linux the same way, then please let me know.

Another catch is that I find this only works well with 720p files. Essentially what the app does it change the container which the video is within. So, if you have an mkv file that you know won’t work on your PS3 (yes, I did try transcoding from a media server but the power required must be astronomical because my dual core AMD 3500 with 4gb ram couldn’t play these files. All you need to do is load up MKV2VOB and then open your file and select a destination where you want your redone video placed. I did not change any default settings at all.  Essentially it is doing is changing the container from mkv to mpeg. It does not need to transcode to do this. It only will Mux the video so that it is in a different container. I find it takes only about 30 seconds at most for a video even of around 4gb size. Note – this is the result only for 720p resolutions or lower. If you want to change the container for a video file with 1080p resolution, it seems to require transcoding which is a very long process in comparison. I have not noticed any 720p files that required transcoding yet. The resulting file should be an mpeg file and should play just fine on your PS3 while still retaining the same resolution and quality including the sound.

I am hoping that newer versions of MKV2VOB will work better with 1080p videos but at least it makes all of those 720p mkv files useful for PS3 owners.

I did try to play some of these videos through PS3 Media Server and have it transcode on the fly, but my CPU on my server was not powerful enough to do so. With my dual core machine with 4gb ram not being able to properly play a larger mkv container file without slowing down or clipping, it makes me curious as to what would be necessary to play these files with mkv container files.

Hopefully this post can save some people some of the time and trial and error I went through to figure things out. Better yet, hopefully down the road we will get a better container that offers all of the same benefits of mkv but also has better compatibility and doesn’t seem to require such vast amounts of CPU power to play.

The GSP vs Penn fight ended up going 4 rounds with GSP becoming more and more dominant round by round. GSP had a smart gameplan and he implemented it perfectly. He mentioned after the fight that he wanted to take down Penn and get blood running to his shoulders and away from his hands so that his boxing would be nullified. That’s exactly what seemed to happen. The ironic part came at the end of the fourth round after GSP had continually side mounted Penn and peppered him with hammerfists and elbows. BJ didn’t seem to know where he was, having to be redirected to his own corner which Penn criticized GSP for in their first fight after the initial round.

The doctor examined Penn after the fourth round and appeared willing to let the fight continue. BJs brother tapped the Dr on the shoulder and gave the signal for the fight to end. BJ himself did not protest. So much for fighting to the death. Although trash talking can be seen as just hyping up a fight, it really can make someone look foolish if they lose – especially in the same way they uttered contempt for anyone who would tap from strikes like a ‘little bitch’ which is essentially what BJ did.

Next up for GSP – Thiago Alves.  Somehow I don’t think Alves will be trash talking like BJ did. Alves has already demonstrated respect for GSP.

I was eagerly anticipating the fight between Thiago Silva and Lyoto Machida. My criticism of Machida in the past wasn’t so much that he avoided strikes but moreso for his lack of offense and aggression which in turn made it just look like he was running away the whole fight. Machida may have finally put things together for this fight. He definitely looked the more aggressive of the two fighters and landed numerous strikes and at the same time, avoided punishment. I had not been much of a fan of watching Machida in the past, but I was happy to see him show a more complete performance this time around. It will lead to more success for him, more entertaining fights and perhaps even a light heavyweight title.

Nate Diaz vs Clay Guida. Clay Guida managed to outwork Diaz in this fight. Diaz seemed like he didn’t even show up. Diaz seemed to lack any zero sense of urgency. What didn’t help Diaz’ chances was that Guida basically hugged Diaz for the preponderance of the fight and the referee failed to separate them despite Guida not doing any damage whatsoever.

Overall it was a good night of fights and it did well to deliver on a much hyped event.