The first thing I remember was the light.

It wasn’t bright or blinding, like one would expect from the desert sun; it was cool and blue.  My head buzzed with questions and the remnants of the previous evening.  Where had I gone?  What had I done?  My memories were clouded by drink, a hodgepodge of flashing lights, ringing bells, and spotty memories of recalling the TCP/IP stack.

I glanced out the window from my hotel bed, then looked at the clock on my phone.  5:30.  I sat up, groaned, my head in a funk.  I remembered the drinks, the Cisco party – a plate full of spring rolls, sushi, and fried shrimp – and another 3 gin and tonics.  Life seemed so good then.  Zombie pirates.  Free food.  Free drinks.  A Cisco dogtag swung freely around my neck as I stood up.  It had been the five nines of uptime.

And now…system failure.  The drunk screen of death.

I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, still in my boxers.  I felt like a fraud.  What did I know?  The 7 layers of the OSI model?  The difference between star-hub and token ring?  RARP?  Child’s play.  I rinsed my face and shuffled back into the room.  I picked up my phone and started looking through SMS logs and my “sent mail” folder.  Shit.  Resigned to the damage, I cleared them away.  Today would be a new day – it was registration day for DEFCON.  It was 5:45; I scrambled to find some gym shorts and quietly left the hotel room.

I needed to flush my cache, and there was a drugstore across the street with a wall of sports drinks.  Down in the hotel lobby, I snaked my way through the casino floor.  Vegas takes its gloves off in the wee hours of the morning.  The cheerful dings and dongs of slots, video poker, and auto-roulette screeched a devil’s chorus; the victims still hanging from the limbs of the one-armed bandit.  Shaking, drunk, it would only take one more quarter.  One more bet.  You can look for whatever you want here, but you can’t deny seeing the wasteland.  I had a headache.  I had to get out.  When I did, I found the air outside to be cool and dry.  The streets were soulless, empty.  I inhaled deeply and walked to the deserted Walgreens.  I bought a large bottle of gatorade and a two-pack of asprin  before downing it all  on the spot.  I went back and bought two more large bottles of the stuff.  Back in the hotel, I fell back asleep, headache fading, hoping it was just a bad dream.

When I awoke, it was almost time to leave.  The headache was back, and my stomach pained.  We took a taxi to the faded “North Strip” about a mile away.  More wasteland here.  The Riviera – or “Riv” – looked like it was on Vegas death row.  It had aged beyond its years, and stood out like an antique among the other, newer properties.  Our taxi rumbled its way past the Riv and began a descent into the hacker underworld.

Here, underneath the relic from a better past, was the reason we’d come.  DEFCON.  The lower level doors slid open with a hydraulic hiss and we pushed our way through a seemingly endless crowd of technists on the casino floor.  A quick glance at some of the t-shirts, and you knew this wasn’t your standard “Women in Red Hats” party.  The “I void warranties” shirt on the lanky kid with the goggles and long hair, the “I <3 My Geek” shirt on a young woman who looked terribly out of place, and the “NINJA” shirt over a 40-pound cheetos belly.  It was a pretty impressive mix of people.  Young, old, men, more men, young men, the awkward 16-year-old MIT kid, also male, and the occasional girl-next-door in a corset.  No, really.

And then, of course, there were the “GOONS.”  A Goon at DEFCON is basically an official, something of a cross between a police officer, a malignant dictator, and Dennis Nedry.  The Goons wore red shirts which clearly disclosed their position of power, and they loved to yell at people.  I don’t really know what it takes to become a Goon, but I imagine the training program consisting of watching THX 1138 and making fart jokes – they were that distinctive.  In fact, I imagine you could tell who the Goons were even if they weren’t wearing GOON shirts, because they’d be the only ones wearing Camelbaks and Boonie hats indoors, while sweating as if they were out in the desert sun.  Goons are basically like mom and dad leaving the house and saying “while we’re gone, you’re in charge,” except it’s to the little brother with too many legos.

After enduring watching some Goons yell at some unsuspecting plebian, I scoped out the registration line.  It wrapped around the back of the hotel, almost swinging outside into the sweltering parking lot.  Sam and Charlie, who apparently do not feel the effects of MASSIVE quantities of alcohol as I do, said they wanted to hit the buffet for breakfast.  I considered it, still feeling woozy from the night before, before looking at the sign on the wall which finally convinced me.

Yeah, I bet.

So, there I was, at the back of the line, iPhone low on battery, waiting it out.  I met a couple of guys in line who were pretty cool – a guy who was in the same shape (mentally) as I was at the time, a lanky, over-energized network engineer, and his cute  wife, who had a tattoo on her chest that screamed “hey, look at my chest, there is a tattoo on it.”

The line went by more quickly than I thought.  Sam and Charlie, full of powdered eggs and soylent green, met me back up at the front of the line.  We were still in a daze, but managed to work our way to the registration desk, where we got our infamous DEFCON badges, marking the beginning of our voyage to the void of the nerd.

Basically, it makes a copy of a directory structure, converting the M4A files to MP3, and it also uses the same modify times. Before converting each file, if there is already an existing MP3, it compares the modify times of each file. If the M4A is newer, it performs the copy.

Use at your own peril.

#!/usr/bin/perl

###############################################################################
#
# aac2mp3.pl
#
# usage: aac2mp3.pl <aac_dir> <mp3_dir>
#
# This script will convert a directory full of AAC files (with .m4a extension)
# into MP3 format. You will need to have faad (AAC decoder), lame (MP3
# encoder), and id3v2 (ID3 tag editor) installed for this to work. The script
# assumes the structure of the directory is of the form "Artist/Album/Track",
# as if you had let iTunes organize your music. The script will preserve the
# following tag information: Title, Artist, Album, Year, Composer, Genre,
# Track Number out of Total Number of Tracks, Disc Number out of Total Number
# of Discs, and Album Artist.
#
###############################################################################

use strict;
use File::stat;

my $aac_dir = $ARGV[0];
my $mp3_dir = $ARGV[1];

mkdir $mp3_dir unless (-e $mp3_dir);

# open the main music directory containing the AAC files
opendir(my $musicdir, $aac_dir);
my @artists = grep(!/^\./, readdir($musicdir));

foreach my $artist (@artists) {
    # open the artist's directory
    opendir(my $artistdir, "$aac_dir/$artist");
    my @albums = grep(!/^\./, readdir($artistdir));

    foreach my $album (@albums) {
        # open the album's directory
        opendir(my $albumdir, "$aac_dir/$artist/$album");
        my @tracks = grep(/.*\.m4a/, readdir($albumdir));

        foreach my $track (@tracks) {
            convert_track($artist, $album, $track);
        }

        closedir($albumdir);
    }

    closedir($artistdir);
}

closedir($musicdir);

###############################################################################
# Convert a track from AAC/MP4/M4A to MP3.
# arguments:
#   artist - the directory name containing the artist's albums
#   album - the subdirectory name containing the artist's album's tracks
#   track - the filename for the track to be converted
###############################################################################
sub convert_track {
    my ($artist, $album, $track) = @_;
    my $filename;
    my $tag_options;
    my $dirname = "$aac_dir/$artist/$album";
    chdir $dirname or die "Can't cd to $dirname\n";

    $filename = $track;

    # First we check to see if the MP3 exists and is not older than the M4A

    # Get the track's modification and access times
    my $aac_stat = stat($filename) or die "stat error: $!: $filename\n";
    my $mtime = $aac_stat->mtime;
    my $atime = $aac_stat->atime; # We use this when setting the MP3's times

    $filename =~ s/\.m4a/\.mp3/g;
    my $mp3file = "$mp3_dir/$artist/$album/$filename";

    # Check the mp3's mod time, and skip if not older than the m4a
    if (-e $mp3file) {
        my $mp3_stat = stat($mp3file) or die "stat error: $!: $mp3file\n";
        return if ($mtime <= $mp3_stat->mtime);
    }

    # Here we convert the track if the MP3 does not exist or is older

    print "Converting $dirname/$track\n";

    $track = quotemeta($track);

    `faad -q -o /tmp/fifo.wav $track`;
    #`faad -o /tmp/fifo.wav $track`;

    # print a message if there has been an error
    print "faad error: $artist/$album/$track: $?\n" if $?;

    my %tag = get_tag($track);

    # We have to set up the directories for the mp3 files
    $dirname = "$mp3_dir/$artist";
    mkdir $dirname unless (-e $dirname);
    $dirname = "$mp3_dir/$artist/$album";
    mkdir $dirname unless (-e $dirname);

    chdir $dirname;
    $track =~ s/\.m4a/\.mp3/g;

    `lame -S -V 2 -b 192 -h /tmp/fifo.wav $track`;
    #`lame -V 2 -b 256 -h /tmp/fifo.wav $track`;

    # print a message if there has been an error
    print "lame error: $artist/$album/$track: $?\n" if $?;

    # set up the tag for the new mp3 file
    `id3v2 --song "$tag{'title'}" $track`;
    `id3v2 --artist "$tag{'artist'}" $track`;
    `id3v2 --album "$tag{'album'}" $track`;
    `id3v2 --year "$tag{'date'}" $track`;
    `id3v2 --TCOM "$tag{'writer'}" $track`;
    `id3v2 --genre "$tag{'genre'}" $track`;
    `id3v2 --track "$tag{'track'}/$tag{'totaltracks'}" $track`;
    `id3v2 --TPOS "$tag{'disc'}/$tag{'totaldiscs'}" $track`;
    `id3v2 --TPE2 "$tag{'album_artist'}" $track`;

    # set the mp3's modification and access times to the same as the m4a's
    utime $atime, $mtime, $filename or die "utime error: $!: $filename\n";

    `rm /tmp/fifo.wav`;
}

###############################################################################
# Get a track's tag information. The function assumes you are already in the
# directory that contains the track.
# arguments:
#   filename - the filename for the track; assumed to be fully escaped
###############################################################################
sub get_tag {
    my ($filename) = @_;
    my %tag = ();

    # We have to open a pipe to get the info because faad displays it on stderr
    open (PIPE, "faad -i $filename 2>&1 |");

    while (<PIPE>) {
        if (/^title: (.*)$/) {
            $tag{'title'} = $1;
        }
        elsif (/^artist: (.*)$/) {
            $tag{'artist'} = $1;
        }
        elsif (/^album: (.*)$/) {
            $tag{'album'} = $1;
        }
        elsif (/^genre: (.*)$/) {
            $tag{'genre'} = $1;
        }
        elsif (/^track: (.*)$/) {
            $tag{'track'} = $1;
        }
        elsif (/^totaltracks: (.*)$/) {
            $tag{'totaltracks'} = $1;
        }
        elsif (/^disc: (.*)$/) {
            $tag{'disc'} = $1;
        }
        elsif (/^totaldiscs: (.*)$/) {
            $tag{'totaldiscs'} = $1;
        }
        elsif (/^date: (.*)$/) {
            $tag{'date'} = $1;
        }
        elsif (/^album_artist: (.*)$/) {
            $tag{'album_artist'} = $1;
        }
        elsif (/^writer: (.*)$/) {
            $tag{'writer'} = $1;
        }
    }

    return %tag;
}

In living room, after assembly

Since I love being at work so much, I decided to make my house look like it. Who needs peace and quiet when you can have 2 80mm fans roaring away? It’s the way computing should be.

Ordering

For a long time, I’ve been running at least 2 FreeBSD servers in my house for various purposes. Purpose #1 is to screw around. As I’ve moved around from place to place, I’ve gotten annoyed with running crappy looking desktops and the mess of cables that go along with them. I wanted a clean, organized solution, and started reading up on server racks. I started looking around and quickly realized that racks and rackable equipment is really expensive. Luckily I ran across the inexpensive, 27U, 2 post rack on CableOrganizer.com. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to pull it off until I realized that Newegg.com has a bunch of server cases that fit ATX and Micro ATX motherboards. I thought this one looked pretty good. After a few months daydreaming about the joy of rack ownership, I pulled the trigger.

Assembling the Rack

Once, the rack came in the mail, putting it together was pretty easy. I had ordered a 2U shelf along with the rack to store my network equipment on.

In position

Unfortunately, the top unit of space on the rack is being taken up by the cross bar holding the two posts together. If I really need it, I can probably remove the cross bar, relying on the equipment to hold the rack together.

Assembling the Server and Mounting

I had an old desktop lying around that was a good candidate for a new server. It started out as a pretty decent barebones kit, and was packing an Athlon 64 3200+ and 1GB of RAM. It already had an 80 GB hard drive, but I decided to use that for the OS and add a 1.5 TB drive for storing whatever I could think of. Rather than go into details of the assembly, I’ll show it in pictures, like a storybook for nerds:

There once was a 4U server case, sitting in Morpheus's chair...

This little server case needed a new brain, so he went to the workshop...

The powerful wizard gave the little server case a brain...

After giving the case a brain, the wizard also gave the case a new home in rackland, along with two friends: Routy and Modulator Demodulator...

The story doesn’t mention that the wizard had to surgically remove the case’s handles in order to fit it on the rack. They are apparently intended more for when the case is installed using rails on a 4 post rack.

Sadly, a rack mountable UPS wasn’t in this wizard’s budget, so a standard desktop model had to do. Connected to it are the server, the cable modem and router, and a monitor that is connected to the server.

OS and Additional Software

For the server’s operating system, I used FreeBSD 8.0. I’m using apcupsd to manage the UPS. I intend to get samba up and running to provide an easy way for my wife and me to store and share files. I would like to someday use HEYU, Xtend, and MisterHouse to be the brain of an X10 enabled smart home. I also want to host virtual machines using VirtualBox and access them remotely from any computer, even away from the house.

Future Plans

In the near future, I plan on moving the rack into my nerd cave’s closet. For some reason, there are not one, but two electrical outlets in there. Perfect! Also, since I have 20U of space left, I eventually want to expand:

• Second server (4U)
• Drawer to store manuals, tools, and extra parts(2U)
• UPS (1U)
• Switch (1U)

Even that leaves 12 more U of space. The possibilities are endless. Mmmm, rack mountable beer tap…

The next day, my dad calls me to complain about “everything looking different” and his email not working. Within 20 seconds, I know this isn’t going to get fixed over the phone. I sigh to myself, and begin to steel my spine for the road of pain and frustration that lies ahead. I know what I must do: UltraVNC SC.

UltraVNC SC (Single Click) is something I heard about when I worked at the help desk at college, and have attempted to get working at least once in the past. It’s a tool that allows you to access someone’s computer remotely through the internet, as if you were standing behind it. From the official website:

UltraVNC SC is a mini (166k) UltraVNC Server that can be customized and preconfigured for download by a Customer. UltraVNC SC does not require installation and does not make use of the registry. The customer only have to download the little executable and Click to make a connection. The connection is initiated by the server, to allow easy access thru customers firewall.

If that didn’t make sense, let me expand: by having the “customer” run the application on their computer, their computer becomes the VNC server. When they “Click to make a connection” it sends an invitation to whatever computer is specified in the executable file, allowing the person at the remote location to connect to the customer computer and fix the problem. This means it requires no configuration of the customer computer or network, nor does it install anything. All you have to do it create the executable, send it to the person you are trying to help, and set your computer to listen for incoming connections. I will break the steps down further.

STEP ONE: CREATING THE EXECUTABLE

Follow the directions here. Basically, you put a text file that includes all the settings, a logo, and an encryption key into a zipped folder and upload it to their executable generator, and it gives you a link to download the executable file.

The text file I used to create the following examples is here.

STEP TWO: DISTRIBUTING THE EXECUTABLE

This might be harder than it seems. A lot of email providers such as Gmail and……..whatever else people use won’t let you send .exe files as attachments. I found the best way to do it was to host it on a web server, so you can just tell your parents to surf to sector930.com/help.exe and save the file to their desktop.

STEP THREE: PREPARING YOUR COMPUTER

Download and install UltraVNC onto your computer. In the example I am using here, I am using port 5555, so that will have to be forwarded through your router/firewall to your local machine. You might also have to turn off your local Windows firewall. Once they are ready to connect, open a DOS command prompt, and navigate to C:\Program Files\UltraVNC and enter the following command:

vncviewer.exe -listen 5555 -dsmplugin MSRC4Plugin.dsm

This command will open UltraVNC Listener on port 5555 and use the encryption plugin. Once you are listening, have the person you are trying to help open the executable file they downloaded from your web server, and you should see something on your screen. From there, it’s up to you.

I decided to create a prepackaged executable for the Sector, and am including examples of possible logos we could use below:

This one is probably the least likely to confuse parents.

Yashi Mash!

This one is probably the most likely to confuse parents.

The possibilities are endless!

]]> http://www.sector930.com/blog/2010/03/26/ultravnc-sc/feed/ 2 http://www.sector930.com/blog/2010/01/06/they-have-television-over-the-air-now-part-3/ http://www.sector930.com/blog/2010/01/06/they-have-television-over-the-air-now-part-3/#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:58:24 +0000 Sam http://www.sector930.com/blog/?p=1268 Continue reading →]]> In my two previous posts about antennas, I explained what I did to research and install an over-the-air TV antenna. Now that I’ve gotten everything installed, I’ll share with you my results.

The Channels

These are all the stations (including subchannels) that I pull in with my new installation.

• 4.1 WRC (NBC)
  • 4.2 NBC Weather Plus
  • 4.3 Universal Sports
• 5.1 WTTG (FOX)
• 7.1 WJLA (ABC)
  • 7.2 Doug Hill’s WeatherNow
  • 7.3 Retro Television Network
• 9.1 WUSA (CBS)
  • 9.2Weather Radar (Doppler 9000 HD)
• 20.1 WDCA (MyNetworkTV)
• 26.1 WETA (PBS)
  • 26.2 Create
  • 26.3 WETA Kids
• WNVC (MHz Networks)
  • 30.1 MHz Worldview
  • 30.2 NHK World TV
  • 30.3 Metro Chinese Network
  • 30.4 Russia Today TV
  • 30.5 Al Jazeera English
• WNVT (MHz Networks)
  • 30.6 SABC News International
  • 30.7 France 24
  • 30.8 Nigerian Television Authority
  • 30.9 VTV4
  • 30.10 Euronews
• 32.1 WHUT (PBS)
• 50.1 WDCW (CW)
  • 50.2 This TV
• 66.1 WPXW (ION)
  • 66.2 qubo
  • 66.3ION Life
  • 66.4 Worship

If you take all the major stations and add their subchannels, that’s 30 channels!  Granted, there are three 24 hour weather channels, two children’s channels, a bible channel, and ten foreign news channels, but the ratio of channels I watch to channels I don’t watch is about the same as it would be on cable TV.

Quality and Reception

All the of the major channels (NBC, FOX, ABC, CBS, MyTV, PBS, CW, ION) are in HD. There is a mix of 720p and 1080i, but it all looks the same on my 32-inch 720p TV, and I have to say it looks pretty amazing.

The MHz channels and all other subchannels are broadcast in 480p, which while not as good as HD, does not look terrible.

Since this is all digital, it’s pretty much all or nothing. There is no graceful signal degradation like there was with analog signals. That does present a problem with a few channels.

WDCW is the worst offender, since the tower is located about two miles farther away and two degrees off from all the others. Occasionally I can’t get a signal from that station at all.

The other two that have issues are WJLA and WUSA, and problems usually happen when there is a heavy overcast. These stations are the only ones that broadcast on VHF, so my guess is that my antenna is less effective at pulling in that band.

Future Improvements

The first thing I plan on trying is a pre-amplifier, which should eliminate the problems we’re having with the stations I mentioned. Also, we sometimes get little tears or warps in the picture, which I assume is the result of interference. Hopefully a pre-amp will also take care of this problem.

As an alternative, I could always go with a bigger antenna. The longer the boom, the farther away I should be able to pull in signals. While I am totally in favor of this idea, I think my wife would rather stick with something smaller.

Conclusion

So far, my broadcast TV experiment has been going great. We are able to watch most of our favorite shows as they air. (Interestingly enough, sometimes we prefer to just watch them on Hulu). I get to watch some of the sports I’d been missing out on. Most of what we miss gets filled in with Hulu and Netflix streaming.

Most important of all, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! keep my wife busy long enough for me to get other things done.

My next project in the home theater department will probably be putting together a PC with XBMC or Boxee, mainly to be able to watch Hulu. Sounds like another blog post!

Signing off…

Update: I almost forgot about this but I wanted to thank Joe for helping me install my antenna. He took an entire Sunday out of his time to help me out. Thanks Joe. You’re a true pal.

“That’s impossible!” you’re must be saying. “Not in this country!”

Folks, behold the power of Google! Some may argue that Google is becoming the new Microsoft, or worse, an even more powerful entity with access to unfathomable terabytes of the world’s personal information. But who cares, with a corporate motto like “don’t be evil,” how can you not trust them? Especially when they offer free text messaging!

Enough banter already — here’s what you need to get free unlimited SMS text messaging:

• A Google Voice account: http://www.google.com/voice/
• A Google Voice phone number (generally included with a Google Voice account)
• A smartphone, preferably one capable of running the Google Voice app (currently BlackBerry and Android only)
  • Note: Any smartphone that has a decent mobile web browser will work via the Google Voice web interface
  • Another note: A BlackBerry with a push email account is best suited for this setup. I’ll explain why later.

As you can see, the requirements are pretty basic. (It is assumed that if you’re nerdy enough to be reading this website, you’re going to have a smartphone and more than likely every type of Google account known to exist).

Now, if you’ve got a BlackBerry, this is how you can set it all up with minimal compromise:

1. Log into your Google Voice account. Set up a new forwarding phone with your cell phone’s number. (Settings > Phones)
2. Enable SMS to E-Mail forwarding. (Settings > Voicemail & SMS > “Forward messages to my email”)

At this point, SMS messages sent to your Google Voice number will now be automatically forwarded to your email. If you have a BlackBerry with an email account that supports push email, you even receive text messages instantly — just like a real text message. The problem is that your BlackBerry will not differentiate between SMS messages you get via email forwarding and all the other emails you get on a daily basis. I don’t know about you, but I don’t instantly check my BlackBerry every time I get a routine email. This obviously creates a problem when you’re attempting to use a mode of communication where messages are expected to be delivered and read almost instantly. Step 3 addresses this issue.

3. Log into BlackBerry’s email configuration (older BlackBerries do this via the BIS web interface, newer BlackBerries have an app that works right from the phone) and set up a new email filter in whichever email account Google Voice is forwarding your SMS messages to.
4. When Google forwards an SMS message to your email, the subject line contains “[SMS]” followed by the sender’s name (if their name and number is entered into your contacts). Edit your new filter to catch any message with “[SMS]” in the subject. Then select “Forward messages to the device” and “Level 1 notification.” The key here is to set up a rule that grabs all email messages coming from Google Voice and forwards them to your BlackBerry as a “Level 1″ message. This allows you to differentiate your text messages and voicemail notifications coming from Google Voice from all the other emails that flood your inbox throughout the day.
5. Edit your BlackBerry profile settings to choose a distinct sound/alert/ringtone for Level 1 messages. Select something that you want to hear every time you get a new text message or voicemail notification.
6. Distribute your new Google Voice number to all your friends and family. Explain that they can keep calling you on your old number, or they can call you on your new Google Voice number (assuming you set up your cell as a forwarding phone), but if they want to text you, they’ll have to use your new Google number. This may confuse some non-technical types, so just tell them you got a new cell number and give them your Google Voice number if they’re confused.
7. Start receiving text messages free of charge! Reply in kind by simply replying to the SMS forwarding email, or launching your Google Voice app or the Google Voice web interface and replying.
8. Call up your cellular provider and tell them to shove their text messages where the sun don’t shine. If you don’t specifically tell them to block all incoming text messages, they’ll just cancel whatever texting plan you currently have (if you have one) and charge you per individual incoming/outgoing message.

I’ve been doing this for several months now, and it works without a hitch! Text messaging at the rates charged by commercial carriers is outrageously expensive. 160-character messages use almost no bandwidth — costing cellular providers next to nothing to route them — yet if you do the math, you are paying upwards of $1,300 per megabyte for the privilege of communicating in such a way that actually frees up carrier capacity by keeping you off the phone. After all, a few bytes of data uses a lot less bandwidth and a lot less spectrum than a voice channel used during a cellular telephone call would.

So, give yourself the gift you’ve always wanted — and help show the cellular providers in this country that we are no longer willing to spend $1,300 per megabyte for the privilege of sending text messages.

With all of the various options for starting/maintaining a home media server, the lowly Apple TV is widely disregarded by “power-nerds” as a viable (or particularly useful) home media solution.  I may not have the technical expertise, prowess, or, frankly, patience to create an amazing home-grown media server, like Edwin, but I am quite the Apple geek, I enjoy pre-fabricated gadgetry, and I have employee discounts to use.*

And no, you can’t have any.

What you can have, however, is a practical guide to getting the most out of Apple TV, which you can get for free, right here, on the Sector!  What a deal!

I’m splitting this guide up into three parts, because I want to advise you on some of the prep work involved before receiving your Apple TV.  If you want to order one, it isn’t actually too late, the Apple Online Store is offering free next-day shipping through Wednesday.  In other words, buy some stock in FedEx for a quick kill.**

Chapter 1: “Should I Actually Order an Apple TV?”

Apple TV is great for:

• People who use Macs, and dump countless dollars into iTunes.
• People who use Windows, and dump countless dollars into iTunes.
• People who have HDTVs.
• People who are not interested in buying Blu-Ray discs.
• People who lose their current DVDs all over the goddamn house and GOD DAMMIT WHERE IS MY COPY OF “THE SECRET OF THE OOZE?”
• People who like all of their movies, music, and photos to be accessible from a central location.
• People who like straightforward, easy-to-use, sleek interfaces.

It so happens that my mom (bless her heart) bought me a 32” HDTV for Christmas.  Sweet.  It also so happens that I am sort of an iTunes slave, and I have a Mac, and, well, that’s just kind of what happens when you work for Apple.  Whaddya know?

I’ll leave the extensive format war discussions to Sam and Andy Rush, but my short take on it is thus: I don’t like Blu-Ray.  I don’t think I really have a good reason to dislike Blu-Ray, I just don’t really like it.  Kind of like “that guy” at the college party who gets all the women to talk to him, effortlessly.  I don’t really know him, but I know he’s probably a douchebag.  Also, I don’t want to start a flame war about costs and Apple products, and formats, but I’m also having a hard time finding high quality Blu-Ray players for less than $200, and Blu-Ray discs are still hella expensive, while HD Movies on iTunes, for the most part, cost $15-19.99.  Just sayin’

I also don’t like “stuff,” I try to keep as little of it as possible; the less I have, the less I can lose or misplace or make a mess with.  I’m done with discs.  That’s just a personal thing, though.

Apple TV costs $229 from the Apple Store, but for some strange, bizarre reason, Apple does not include any component or HDMI cables.  In my opinion, that’s kind of like ordering a hamburger without a bun, but I guess people do that.  Do not buy HDMI or component cables from the Apple Store, or even Best Buy, for that matter.  Go to Target, RadioShack or Wal-Mart to save a few coins.

If you do not have an HDTV, do not order an Apple TV.

If you do not have broadband Internet, do not order an Apple TV.

If you do not feel like backing up your purchases to an external unit, do not order an Apple TV.  Losing a digital purchase, for whatever reason, is no different than losing a DVD.  If you lose it, you will have to buy a new one.

If you do not feel comfortable truly “owning” your content, do not order an Apple TV.

What’s that?  You got one anyway?  Cool.  It is actually quite a nifty gadget, and, like most Apple products, does more than people give it credit for.

Chapter 2: Prepping for Apple TV

Overview

Apple TV gets its data over wired or wireless Ethernet, via several methods.  It is possible to stream iTunes music, watch YouTube, view photos, listen to Internet radio, and, of course, “sync” your Apple TV with an iTunes library, much like an iPod.

This confused me at first, as I thought you could only stream iTunes content to Apple TV, which is not the case, as it is possible for Apple TV to store iTunes Library content locally.  This is also a misconception among my customers.  It is possible to transfer movies from your computer to Apple TV, and vice versa.  That is, if your content is purchased on the device itself, it can be copied to an iTunes library on your computer.  The device has a 160 GB HDD for content.

Step 1: Rip Your DVDs.

Apple TV does not play DVDs, which is where HandBrake comes in.  HandBrake is a free, very reliable, open-source piece of software for pulling DVD content from DVDs.

Now, the legality of ripping DVDs continues to be questionable; I’m not going to be held responsible for you if you distribute your ripped content in a way which violates copyright law.  I’m in the “if you own the DVD, it’s your DVD” camp, and have no moral objections to DVD ripping in this context.

If you need help using HandBrake, check the documentation on their website, this is not a HandBrake tutorial.  I do recommend you use “Apple Universal” (mp4) for the end format, however, and I personally shoot for a 1GB file size target for most movies, with 2-pass encoding.  Longer movies will warrant larger file sizes, though, so keep that in mind when you’re pulling the extended edition of Return of the King.

Ripping takes a long time, even on a fast Core 2 Duo.  Get a sandwich, something with bacon.  Rinse and repeat.

Step 2: Clean Up and Prep iTunes.

Apple TV absolutely requires you to use iTunes, but you probably knew that.  Once you’ve finished ripping your DVDs, it’s time to copy them into iTunes.  The easiest way to do this is to select “Movies” from the iTunes sidebar, and simply drag-and-drop movies into the pane.  You can also click “File,” and scroll to “Add to Library.”  From there, navigate to your movie file, and add it to your library.

IF YOU HAVE CONFIGURED iTUNES TO COPY ALL CONTENT TO YOUR LIBRARY FOLDER, WHICH I RECOMMEND, IT WILL LEAVE THE ORIGINAL FILE INTACT, LEAVING YOU WITH TWO COPIES OF YOUR MOVIE ON YOUR HDD.

ERASE THE FIRST COPY.

Once you’ve done this, you need to add the movie’s poster; it looks better in both iTunes and on Apple TV.

In order to add a poster to a movie, right click (or control+click) on the movie in iTunes.  Select “Get Info,” and then click on the “Artwork” tab.  The next step is to find a copy of the poster, which is best done by typing the title of the movie into Google Image Search.  For movie artwork in iTunes, use images that are around 700 pixels tall by 500 pixels wide.  For reasons that I do not understand, dragging and dropping film artwork into the artwork pane does not work, so I created a folder on my desktop called “movie posters,” saved the JPEGs into it, and applied them in iTunes via the “add” button in the artwork pane.

I’m still working on ripping my movies, but this is what my library looks like so far.

Next week, we’ll go over syncing, unboxing, and configuring Apple TV.

*The views expressed in this post are my own and do not represent those of Apple, Inc., FileMaker, or any of its subsidiaries.  For questions regarding Apple consumer policy, please visit http://apple.com/legal.

**I AM NOT A FINANCIAL ADVISOR.  DO NOT TAKE MY FINANCIAL ADVICE IN ANY SERIOUS CAPACITY; I GOT A C+ IN FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT IN COLLEGE.  IF YOU SEND ME HATE MAIL AFTER YOU LOSE YOUR LIFE SAVINGS, I WILL LAUGH AT YOU WITHOUT REMORSE.

In this post, I’ll talk about the equipment I bought and how I actually installed it.

I got pretty much everything from RadioShack. I have given RadioShack a lot of shit in the past for being a crappy consumer electronics store, but they were the only store around that had everything I needed, including the antenna and mounting hardware. Home Depot and Lowe’s had none of it.

Equipment

The antenna I decided on was the Antennacraft HBU33. I could have gone with any number of brands, but RadioShack had this one. It is a high-VHF (channels 7-13) and UHF (channels 14 and up) combo antenna, and it’s supposed to have a range of about 60 miles. These specs fit my situation, since I’m about 45 miles away from the towers, and, despite the fact that most channels are on UHF, there are still two on high-VHF.

Depending on your own situation, you might be able to get a UHF-only antenna. They are smaller and supposedly more effective than a combo antenna. Also, if you are close enough to the towers, an indoor antenna is the easiest solution.

I also bought a tripod mount and 5 foot mast, also from RadioShack. There are several options available for mounting the antenna, such as an eave mount or a simpler mount, but a tripod mount was the easiest way to go for my situation.

The rest of the stuff I needed was some coaxial cable, grounding wire, and a grounding block. Luckily, I already had two satellite dishes on my roof with connected coaxial, and the cables already had some grounding wire attached to it.

As I wrote about in my previous post, AntennaWeb told me I would need a pre-amplifier. I decided to go without the pre-amp for now, since the antenna’s supposed range was about 60 miles. (I’ll talk about this more in a future post, but I might install a pre-amp sometime soon.)

After gathering everything together, I was ready to go.

Installation

You can choose to do this later on, but I assembled my antenna first. Mine mostly involved snapping the elements into place.

For installing everything, I got Joe to help me out, since at the time he did that kind of thing for a living.

The first thing we did was bolt the legs of the tripod to the roof. The tripod came with all the necessary hardware. It also came with sticky putty pads to put on the bottom of the feet. These ensure that a good seal is made around the bolts so as to prevent your roof from leaking.

After securing the tripod, the next step was to place the mast into the tripod. The mast rests on an L-plate at the bottom of the tripod and is secured by bolts. (I would take pictures, but it’s December and I’m not getting on my roof.) After that we attached the antenna to the mast using the supplied U bolt.

Since these long range TV antennas are highly directional, it was important that we pointed the thing in the right direction. With the help of Joe’s iPhone and the signal strength meter he borrowed from work, we got it where it needed to be.

At this point, everything was in place, and the last thing to do was connect the antenna to my house’s coaxial network. I grabbed the coaxial off of the satellite dishes and connected it to the supplied 300-ohm to 75-ohm impedance matching transformer.

An important step we made sure not to overlook is to properly ground the connection. A grounding wire needs to be run from the base of the antenna mast to a grounding rod. Also, the coaxial coming from the antenna needs to be attached to a grounding block, which is then attached to the grounding rod using more grounding wire. We did all this, and it should prevent a lightning strike from taking out my TV.

Since I use a cable modem for my internet needs, there was already a feed coming into the coaxial network. For now, I just wanted one room to receive the antenna feed. After some trial and error, we found which cable to connect to.

Then we went inside, used my TV‘s built-in tuner to scan for available signals, and sat back and enjoyed HD over-the-air TV, FOR FREE.

Tune in next time, and I’ll wrap up with a discussion of the results, along with ideas for future improvements.

There is one important reason to be interested in this new-fangled wireless transmission: it’s free. What’s that? It’s ad-supported? Millions and millions of cable subscribers willingly sit through advertisements and they PAY for the privilege. It’s time to wake up America. You are getting screwed. Seriously. And somehow all these people have been convinced that cable television is a UTILITY, that is, something they can’t live without.

So in my personal quest to improve my life (i.e., watch less TV) AND stick it to The Man, I have been cable-less for just shy of one year. It’s probably one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I save over $60/month and I get more done around the house. I have since replaced television with Hulu and the Roku player.

As great as Hulu and Netflix are, though, a few things were still missing: the occasional sporting event, the local news (whatever that’s worth), and of course, Sesame Street. So a couple of weeks ago, I finally turned off the Roku (so much for getting things done!) and installed an over-the-air TV antenna.

Gathering intel

I had been sitting on this project ever since I dropped cable, so I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. A while back I did some Googling and stumbled across the site AntennaWeb. There, you can type in your address and get a list of broadcast stations are near you, what RF channel they’re on, how far away they are, and what direction they’re in. The site will also tell you what kind of antenna you will need to pick up each station. Since I live about 45 miles away from the DC area broadcast towers, indoor rabbit ears weren’t going to cut it. Plugging my address into the FCC’s DTV Reception Maps page confirmed this.

Here are the results from AntennaWeb for my address:

Because the digital transition finally went through on June 12, virtually all major broadcast stations require the use of an ATSC tuner to be able to view. Modern TVs have these, but the old tube TVs don’t. This is the reason a lot of old people need one of those converter boxes.

Notice that I didn’t say you need an HD or a digital antenna. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN HD/DIGITAL ANTENNA. AN ANTENNA IS JUST A BIG PIECE OF ALUMINUM.

If you look at the chart, you’ll see the column “RF Channel”. This tells you which frequency each of the station broadcasts on. Channels 2-6 are the VHF low-band, channels 7-13 are the VHF high-band, and channels 14 and up are the UHF band. Look at these when choosing an antenna. Many stations in the US have switched to UHF, which means you might be able to get an antenna specifically designed for that band. Unfortunately, I have to use a combo antenna just to accommodate two stations.

The other “Channel” column tells you the channel that the station will use on your TV. Thanks to PSIP, stations can be broadcast on one RF channel but displayed on your TV on another channel.

The next step was to figure out how big of an antenna I needed, which depended on the stations’ power output and distance. According to AntennaWeb, I was going to need a large directional antenna with a pre-amplifier.

In a future post, I will cover the other phases of this project: selecting the equipment, installing everything, and admiring the results. As they say in the industry, tune in next time!

I’m not asking you technically, I mean metaphorically.

I know it’s some kind of wack-ass chemical reaction.  Something about juice and acid and gas (lol) and science.  It’s just “nature’s way” of saying “hey, hey buddy, there is nothing in here, so you better fix it, you nutjob.”  Reactions are for chemists.  I have another theory.

It’s a reminder of what we really are: animals.  Mammals with powerful, powerful instincts, and at 11:45 AM, those instincts are screaming only one thing at the top of their lungs:

MEAT.

Take me, for example.  This is what I look like around lunchtime.  Clean-cut.  Well-kept.  Good-looking, and with an uncompromisingly American attitude.

I'm single, for the love of God I'm single.

Inside, though.  Inside…there is only this.

I'm still single.

Sometimes you don’t even realize that you’re hungry, because your stomach doesn’t growl.  That’s when you’re really hosed, because then you realize that you have been chewing on the backend of an ST connector for half an hour, and you’re “pretty sure it ain’t gonna be working anymore” and you have to explain to your boss why you have a $25 fiber replacement on your expense report.  But I digress.

As it turns out, I didn’t know what to have for lunch today, even though I was in that kind of mood.  Part of me was saying “cheeseburger,” and the other part of me was saying “chicken nuggets.”  Generally incompatible, yes, but if you can install Windows on an Intel Mac, what can’t you do?  Legend tells of a sandwich outside the mortal realm, a sandwich which – literally – strikes fear into the hearts of even the most seasoned nerds.  Truly a diabetic debacle.  A gastrointestinal ghoul.  A nutritional non sequitur. Gentlemen!  (And Shannon and Lenore) THE MCGANGBANG.

Jesus Christ.

Now, if it is not obvious enough, a McGangbang is a McDonald’s Double Cheeseburger with a McDonald’s McChicken in the middle of it, a total cost of $2.19, plus tax.  I imagine it is called “The McGangbang” because that is what it feels like it’s doing to your digestive system as you are eating it.  If you use the $1 “McDouble” – McDonald’s way of being a bunch of cheap-ass bastards by yanking the second piece of cheese from the double cheeseburger so they could keep the cost at a buck – it’s not a McGangbang.  You really, really do need both pieces of cheese for this to work.

Now, being a nerd, something of an innovator, and someone who enjoys tinkering in general, especially with cuisine, I decided to approach the assembly of this atomic abomination with a few hacks.  Why?  Two reasons.

1: I don’t like mayonnaise.  At all.  I realize this is really a personal issue; I mean, I also like having Dock Magnification turned on, so it’s a wash.  What I do like, however, is Big Mac sauce.  Therefore, I ordered the McChicken with big mac sauce instead of mayonnaise.  I thought it would be free, but McDonald’s charged me 0.15 for it.  Fair enough, I’d bitch if it were more than a quarter.

2: There is really no need for four buns.  A third bun gives the sandwich balance.  A fourth is extra calories at the cost of the taste of the delicious meat.  Basically, having 4 buns on one sandwich is kind of like running Windows Vista in any capacity; there’s so much fluff, you have a hard time getting to the meat.

That’s what she said.

This in mind, I decided to christen my creation “The McGangbang 2.0″ because “The McMcMahon” is obnoxiously redundant.

Caloric Breakdown:

Double Cheeseburger: 440 kcal
McChicken with Big Mac Sauce and No Bun: approx 290 kcal
Small Fry: 230kcal
Diet Coke: 0kcal

Total: 960kcal.  Obviously not something you’d want to eat every day, but you could definitely do worse.  A double quarter pounder with cheese and a medium french fry will set you back 1120kcal, and probably be a lot less awesome.  Altogether was $5.21 with lousy 10% local restaurant tax.

I set out my ingredients before beginning assembly.  The fries were not involved with sandwich construction, but they were part of my lunch, so whatever.

I then proceeded to begin the construction of the McGangbang 2.0.  The most annoying part of it was separating the two cheeseburger patties, which had somehow managed to permanently fuse themselves together in a disgustingly glorious singular mass of cheese and death over the course of my five-minute drive back to my office.

It was unpleasant.

THE FINISHED PRODUCT.  BEHOLD:

How does it taste?  Well, the big mac sauce was on kind of thick, so your mileage may vary, but otherwise, it was really, really awesome.  I would definitely eat this again.  The lettuce gave it some oomph, and the McChicken patty is a peppery and heavily-breaded but otherwise pretty good piece of poultry.  Removing the fourth bun was definitely a good idea.  I like all the other ingredients (ketchup, mustard, pickles, lettuce, McDonald’s ghetto onions), so those stayed, which was also a good move.  It really did have a lot of flavor.

It's only truly horrifying if you stare at it for too long, like eating an oyster.

And how do I feel now?  Surprisingly okay.  My regret-o-meter is only rolling about a 3 out of 5, which is about what I was expecting.  Feeling pretty full/heavy right now, to be sure, but it’s pretty chilly outside anyway.  I’ll get a salad for dinner.  Or not.

So there you have it, folks, the McGangbang 2.0.  I recommend it.  Who knows, maybe it’ll catch on and we’ll get some more readers and be Internet celebrities or get some coupons.  So, until we get a shot at the KFC Double Down, adios.