Schadenfreude

I was having the hardest time getting various programs to echo the runtime of m2ts files in Linux, and it turns out someone wrote a parser for the files in the BDMV/PLAYLIST directory, which have all of this information.

• Get bdtools. I got Version 1.4. You can find it here.
• ./configure && make && sudo make install
• Try running mpls_dump. I got this error when running:

  mpls_dump: error while loading shared libraries: libbd-1.0.so.1: cannot open shared object file:
  No such file or directory

• To fix it, do this:

  echo "/usr/local/lib" | sudo tee -a /etc/ld.so.conf
  sudo ldconfig

Uncategorized awesome, bluray, encoding, linux, m2ts, mpls, software, tools, ubuntu, utilities

I have no idea why this package isn’t in the default community repositories. I highly recommend they add it. Use the following commands to add the repository and install the package:

sudo zypper ar ftp://ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/repositories/home:/mkng:/science/openSUSE_11.1/ PARI
sudo zypper in pari-gp

Uncategorized gp, linux, opensuse, pari, software, zypper

Calibre is about the best thing since sliced bread. It is able to convert basically any type of Ebook format into EPUB, which is what my Nook reads natively. It seamlessly syncs with the Nook as well, which is a huge plus, and all of this happens in Linux. I highly recommend this software. Just make sure not to queue up too many jobs, or it might DOS your computer for a bit. The PDF conversion is especially intensive. It makes quick work of short documents (hundreds of pages), but documents that are thousands of pages take much, much longer. The only capability I’m missing currently is conversion of DOC to EPUB, but I can use OpenOffice to convert a DOC to HTML, and then import that into Calibre and convert it, so that works.

Uncategorized awesome, Calibre, ebooks, linux, nook, reading, software, ubuntu

I converted an ebook from TXT to EPUB today using Calibre, and found that the italics (which in the TXT file are annotated /like this/) are not converted into the HTML equivalent.  I did the following to fix this:

1. unzip ebook.epub -d tmpbook
2. cd tmpbook
3. perl -i.bak -pe 's/([\s-,.;\'?:]+)\/(.+?)\/([\s-,.;\'?:]+)/$1<i>$2<\/i>$3/sg;' *html
4. That will create.bak files just in case anything went wrong.  To revert the changes, do this:
   for i in *.bak; do mv $i ${i%.bak}; done
5. zip -r ebook.zip * && mv ebook.zip ebook.epub

Then, I found out Calibre works beautifully with the Nook, so I just popped it on there and it worked.

Uncategorized awesome, Calibre, ebooks, linux, nook, software

I found an interesting article today about Wordpress.  It was how to make it live in another directory. I needed that, so I followed the instructions, and it worked. Wordpress is so much easier to install and configure than Mephisto.  It’s even easier to use than Mephisto.  I can see almost no reason anyone would want to use Mephisto anymore, other than nostalgia – Wordpress has really cleaned up its act.  It seems the most recent public vulnerabilities to it were apparently way back in 2.3 (I’m on 2.8).  So, I recommend my readers either get some hosting and start their own installation, or jump over to Wordpress.com and make one of their own!

Uncategorized apache, blogs, hosting, php, software, wordpress

So, at the PWN2OWN contest, a MacBook Air was hacked in under 2 minutes. A Vista machine was also hacked a little later, but the Ubuntu machine stood strong despite various attempts. Just goes to show that Macs are definitely not as invincible as many people keep saying they are…

Uncategorized apple, hacking, macbook, operating systems, osx, software, ubuntu

Installing windows from an OEM recovery CD has never been something I would
try, but apparently my friend is brave enough to do it. While he was
in his 9th hour of installing today, he decided to come to his senses and just
put Ubuntu back on. Lo and behold, he could not cancel the installation. He
tried CTRL-ALT-DEL, but to no avail. Then, something magical happened.
ALT-TAB produced this:

Wow. What is FBI Gui Manager? Why is it packaged with an HP Recovery disc?
I couldn’t find much information online about the specific product, but there
seemed to be some chatter about it being produced by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation themselves. I wonder if they’re remotely monitoring HP boxen.
So, if you have a default installation of Windows from HP or Compaq, or have
reinstalled using the recovery discs, you should switch to Linux so you aren’t
spied upon.

UPDATE: After a while, it had a fatal error, and he had to restart anyway. The error read

Current task RUNFBI failed.

Weird…

Uncategorized privacy, software