2008-05-29

Mario Basanov & Vidis feat. Jazzu - I'll Be Gone

A good friend of mine offered me to get this music video from one of the p2p exchange sites popular in Lithuania. I prefer audio content so I don't, actually, like storing music videos (concerts are an exception) on my PC or any other media. I looked for online version and first result was a bullseye.

Yet another good piece of quality music from LT. Here is some information about this work of art in lithuanian.


2008-05-25

MPlayer on Windows Vista

Everybody knows that Microsoft released it's next operating system called Windows Vista on January 30, 2007 (retail). All know, but only few pioneers use it. I don't really remember why I chose to install this OS onto my computer (both at home and work), but here I am... Throw a rock at me! I have had few BSODs, which I can't recall having on Windows XP with same hardware and software configuration, and I don't like it. However, I can do everyday tasks with no hiccups.
Video playback is numero uno among these tasks. I have used VLC player up until now, but crappy OGM (XVID video + vorb audio inside and SSA subtitles in a separate file) playback made me look for better alternatives. I installed win32 port of mplayer and opened one of anime episodes from my collection with it. Audio and video ran in sync, fast forward/backward worked like a charm (big difference from VLC), but Aero was gone. Not a single second without
eye-candy, I say!
After googling and fiddling with settings for a few minutes I managed to run mplayer without shutting Aero off. Here are instructions meant for two mplayer win32 ports.
MPUI:
Start application, go Tools -> Options, copy/paste " -dr -vo gl:glfinish" into Additional MPlayer parameters line, click Save, OK, close MPUI.
SMPlayer:
Start application, go Options -> Preferences, copy/paste "gl:glfinish" into Video under Output drivers in General tab, click OK, close SMPlayer.
You will enjoy both fantastic mplayer and beautiful Aero after that.


2008-05-21

Gibbon died, long live Heron

As all Linux aware people know, new version of Ubuntu distribution codenamed Hardy Heron was released on April 24th, 2008. This version is tagged "LTS" (Long Time Support) so I decided to upgrade my current Ubuntu powered homebrew router (very old PC with Ubuntu running on it) from 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) to 8.04. I did some research on this matter before I took serious steps so upgrade was not major PITA type of thing. I followed instructions shown in official Ubuntu documentation site. I took my chances and did remote upgrade through SSH although system notified me that problems may occure. After answering few simple questions upgrade process finished with rebooting server. SSH session ended and I waited for a few minutes to login again.
A moment later I tried to SSH back with no luck. Machine responded only to PING requests so I decided to check what went wrong as soon as I get home. I, actually, hate any of hardware-centric tasks related to the router, but I had to do something cause staying disconnected was not an option. Infamous mini ATX box travelled from a dustiest corner straight on to a worktable. I hooked USB-to-PS/2-to-AT keyboard, display up with a hope to see something that I could deal with.
System booted, messages ran through a screen and stopped barfing short error about a bad superblock out. It was kinda intersting because I couldn't remember changing hard drive configuration. After comparing df command output with /etc/fstab contents I saw that filesystem label changed from /dev/hdb1 to /dev/sdb1. So, I had to edit only one letter in /etc/fstab file to make my system boot.
It was no big change, but it took some nerves and time to figure it out. Hope that helps you too.