Half Way Through 2006

Posted by Trejkaz Mon, 03 Jul 2006 00:24:00 GMT

I haven’t posted for a while, so I thought I might owe the few readers I have, a bit of an update to give some kind of poor excuse for my lack of posting recently.

The media centre is basically complete, with the operating system installed and bits of MythTV already working. A PVR-150 card has been ordered for video capture, which comes with its own IR receiver, so I should be able to get some kind of agreement going between my universal remote and LIRC.

I ordered the PVR card some time ago, but it went on back-order so I don’t know exactly when it will be arriving. I have been putting off actually plugging things in yet though, because nothing is worse than having to disconnect and reconnect a piece of home entertainment equipment – that cabinet is just not meant to be touched, ever. I did measure things up though, and the unit fits in the cabinet with just enough space to breathe.

Gaming-wise, I have been playing through Metroid Prime: Hunters. The game isn’t exactly challenging per se (I haven’t met a hunter yet who was a problem to kill – the sniping one was the hardest so far, mainly because they kept going invisible) but finding the right direction to go is a major issue at the current point in time. I don’t want to use a walkthrough, but if I can’t get anywhere in another hour or so I’ll probably be forced to.

I’ve also been pushing through Super Monkey Ball Touch & Roll

But most of my time over the past several weeks has been sunk into a certain anime series which has crawled into my brain and stuck there, poking around to see how I will react. I think I’ve watched certain episodes eight times over now, so maybe it will burn out at some point in time. Unfortunately I don’t know which will burn out first – my brain, or my interest in the series. In the meantime, I have some t-shirts to make.

Tags , , ,  | no comments

New Media Centre, Stage 2

Posted by Trejkaz Wed, 14 Jun 2006 00:08:00 GMT

I completed most of the assembly of the new media centre after work last night, finishing everything but the CPU and RAM. Insomnia struck at about 4am this morning, and since there was no point going back to sleep even if I could, I decided to head to the office early to finish the job before the normal working day started. The basic hardware is all in place now.

The newer CPU heatsinks being employed by AMD are really nice. I can’t count how many times I’ve been pushing down on a screwdriver, scared that it will slip or break, and smash some expensive piece of electronics. Now, you just have a little rounded lever, which wedges it firmly into place and locks onto the socket.

Lessons learned:

  • It’s really hard to discipline yourself to install drives upside-down, even when you know they have to be installed upside-down.
  • IDE cables really blow when you’re trying to save space inside a case. A SATA DVD-ROM drive would have been really nice, but for some reason there is “no demand” for them (a dongle costing more than $50 doesn’t count, because that would triple the effective cost of the drive.)
  • The provided front-panel audio connectors will never correspond to the available pins on the motherboard (now that I have four computers where this is the case, I can be fairly safe to make this kind of assumption.)

Now I’m just waiting for an opportunity to start a Linux install on the box. Maybe that can start at lunch. Or maybe I’ll just have to wait until the work day ends again.

Remaining hardware I need is mainly an IR receiver. I’ve noticed that many video encoder cards come with them, so perhaps I should just use that approach. I do need something compatible with LIRC though, and I’m not yet sure how much that need will restrict my choices.

Tags , ,  | no comments

New Media Centre, Stage 1

Posted by Trejkaz Tue, 13 Jun 2006 06:09:00 GMT

Most of the parts for my new media centre arrived at the office this morning. The sweetest thing about it is the look of the new case. The Silverstone LC11 is a really nice piece of work, even if it is slightly larger than my current media box.

As far as assembly, it looks like the DVD drive is the only thing stopping me finishing it in one run. I couldn’t just buy the first black-fronted drive I found the other day because I had to confirm whether the drive door would fit the slot in the case. Now that I’ve seen the way the front drive door works, I’m fairly confident that it will fit, so I suppose a trip back to the local parts shop is in order.

The worst thing though? Knowing that real work has to be done first. I can’t start any assembly until the work day is over. ;-D

Tags , ,  | no comments