TiVo

Tivo Desktop
Running on Windows. Grabs the shows to a local VM disk. It won't save to a mapped drive. Lame.

VideoReDo
Converts the .TiVo to an mpg that the TiVo can view. Also strips commercials. Costs about $30. Windows.

TVAP
Watches the local VM disk for new shows. It then runs VideoReDo on the shows and saves them to the file server. It creates a text file with the show metadata in it. Windows.

pyTiVo
Publishes the shows on the file server for the TiVo to view again.

Runs on the file server (Solaris) but could be anything that can run python and ffmpeg (mplayer?). Unix, MacOSX, Windows. Uses the show metadata from TVAP.

Apparently pyTivo doesn't like "-" in the name of a share. Anything I tried to transfer from such a share would pause after 10 seconds and eventually kill the transfer. Removing the "-" from the sharename fixes it.

pyTivo has a version that will create a share for every subfolder you have. It works well.



Encoding and Ripping

Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Free Video Rippers, Encoders, and Converters

Organizing blogs

I've been reading a number of blogs about organizing, GTD (Getting Things Done) and dealing with clutter. Here's a list of links:

Unclutterer - and dealing with paper clutter
Declutter an area from Good housekeeping

43 Folders deals with GTD and is a source of the hipster PDA (paper based)
Lifehacker has tips on GTD and changing your life habits
Zen Habit's simplification of GTD Nice graphic of flow

Resources for Decluttering your home from http://zenhabits.net

WWLD? No. 2: Keeping Connected | 43 Folders
WWLD? No. 3: Organizing your environment | 43 Folders
WWLD? No. 4: Living Your Life | 43 Folders

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Sysadmin

Brendan Gregg has a ton of Solaris tools and stuff that works elsewhere. Portping can substitute where pings are not returned but another service is.


Clonezilla is a ghost clone

How to Make a Network Cable

Fly Fusion Pen

My wife & I got a Fly Fusion pen to try. You write on special paper and the pen records your writing.

You can hook it up to a USB cable and import the drawing & writing. Output is an image or OCR will transform the text into a document.

In addition, the pen had a speaker and headphone jack to play music and give feedback for other functions. There is a music playing app: You draw a keyboard and can then play it with the pen. It will translate spanish writing to english speaking or vice versa. A calculator.

Your lettering needs to be block style like elementry school. I have pretty bad handwriting and decent block lettering. The OCR works well for me.

It's targeted at kids for homework and the applications are geared that way. For note taking, I think it's good for business use too. It's less obtrusive in a meeting then a laptop or especially a table computer. It's quicker then using a Palm. It captures drawings better then both. At $70 plus $8 per notebook, it's a nobrainer.