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About
Notes and views on CRM, open business models, and what the Web means for customer relationships. [more]
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Speaking at:
IIR's Mobile CRM, Bupadest, Dec 2008
Telecoms CRM, CEM and User Experience 2008
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My summer project: Linux HTPC (Part 2 - OS)
IN THE PREVIOUS INSTALLMENT, I covered my reasons and the components I used to build my HTPC. I’ll tell you: installing the CPU, formatting the harddrive, and configuring BIOS is still fun and easy. The hard part is breathing life into the thing.
First, I tried GeeXboX - the smallest Linux HTPC distribution I’ve heard of - it comes as a 8.9MB ISO that you can use as a Live CD or install on disk.
I had used it on my desktop PC before I decided to build this, and it’s a fine, fine distribution. Plays all media formats, doesn’t do much else. It’s great for use with a standard-def CRT TV.
Now that I got an HDTV, I wanted to lose as little video information as possible, so I bought a DVI-HDMI cable and tried to train the TV to accept the signal from my PC. Here is where I encountered the first major challenge. GeeXboX doesn’t do HDTV well.
Whatever I did, I ended up with either a blank screen or some ridiculous resolution like 320×240. The TV is rather picky about what signals it lets through. And when it does, it’s often scaled wrong and the picture borders overflow the screen. There is a whole site dedicated to pixel mapping on LCD TVs.
I spent several days trying to figure this out. Google, whatever their evil plans on world domination might be, was my friend. In the end, I capitulated and connected my Windows PC to the Toshiba and used PowerStrip to figure out modelines, refresh rates, and such. The TV’s native resolution is 1366×768 but the closest I got was 720p - still good enough.
At this point, I already ditched GeeXboX in favour of Mythbuntu, a Ubuntu-based MythTV-centered distribution. Being in Alpha stage, though, the distro wouldn’t install, crashing due to some undecipherable error encountered in the early stages of installation. The hacquor in me was already tired of all the hours spent so far, so instead of pushing and debugging, I did a regular Kubuntu install. Then I added a couple more packages:
I had to go with Nvidia drivers since X.org’s own wouldn’t run with the resolution and modelines PowerStrip provided. Logs revealed that the Toshiba reported being a 50″ panel with resolution of 720×570 and the X server didn’t know better. Luckily the binary driver somehow got over that lie and - about a week after I started - I finally saw my Kubuntu desktop in all its glory.
Next: choosing between MythTV and Freevo, getting the remote control to work, and final thoughts.
My summer project: Linux HTPC
I WILL BREAK THE REGULAR PROGRAMMING with a personal story: how I’ve built a custom Home Theatre PC and felt like I was 8 again, playing with Lego. That’s partly why I haven’t written much about neither CRM nor software delivery lately. Having taken a 4-week break from work - we’ve welcomed our second son Richard to our family - I’ve had some time for my own… things. This has been one of them.
It didn’t take me 4 weeks to build this thing but it surely felt like that. Read on.
1. Rationale
I’ve recently bought a 37″ Toshiba Regza and having always wanted my whole media library at my fingertips, thought about adding a network media player to the mix. Something like Netgear EVO8000: a wifi-enabled, Linux-based appliance that would connect my TV with all the digital music and video I’ve got stored on my PC. But then, I could build a whole computer for the price of EVO8000. And so I did, since:
- an appliance works out of the box (ideally) but the boundaries set by the manufacturer are sometimes too tight; if it doesn’t play Matroska videos, that’s that: they won’t play
- I haven’t built a PC in over 2 years; reading Scott Hanselman’s series on building his Dream Developer PC, I got green with envy: I had to do it, too
My thinking was: I was going to spend some time on it, time that wasn’t billable anyway, and I was going to put together a versatile HTPC that will play all video & audio formats, be controllable with a remote, host all our media until I add a NAS, and perform a couple of additional tasks (like automatically downloading podcasts I listen to, but I haven’t got to that yet).
With a rock-solid excuse, I went shopping.
2. Hardware
Finding a PC enclosure that doesn’t look like a Cinderella when sitting next to your classy home-video components is a chore. Getting a standard mid-tower case was a no-go: I want a computer in my living room, but it shouldn’t look like one. At least not to the casual observer.
I settled on a “book-size” barebone from Asus, the AM2-based P1-AH2, which doesn’t scream Style! but has a passable design and was supposed to be small. It’s not as small as I would have wanted, though; I am going to read the specs the next time more thoroughly (357 x 91 x 275 mm).
Why go the AMD route when everybody seems to be buying Core 2 Duos now? Simple: my intent has been to use the box for playback only, and any modern processor can do that. I would consider going Intel if I wanted to do video transcoding, but even then, I suppose the Athlon X2 would do. And given the performance edge new Intels have, AMD processors are dirt cheap. So I added the cheapest Sempron I could find, though, plus a single 512MB DDR2 stick.
With a simple DVD drive and a 1GB flash drive, I thought I was done. I wanted to run a pendrive Tux on the machine to eliminate the noice hard drives make but long story short, I couldn’t make that work. Therefore, I cannibalized my desktop PC and thrown in a PATA 80GB disk.
With that, I was ready to install the OS.
Next: Geexbox=>Mythbuntu=>Kubuntu, how to make the TV accept a video input from the PC via DVI-HDMI cable, installing software to make all that useful.
To Quit or Not?
Seth Godin has a gift, a very American one I might add, of storytelling that makes holding his books and turning the pages a joy. Such is The Dip, a brief etude on when to quit (and when not to): a literary dessert.
It has 80-something pages but could easily be condensed to just one:
- Be #1 at whatever you are doing.
- To get there, you will, after the initial outburst of energy, get to a point where you will need to sacrifice your whole self to cross the line that separates masters from has-beens
- You have to know if you’ve got what it takes; if not, quit, and don’t be ashamed of it.
Anybody could tell you that, yet it’s one thing to absorb a bulleted list and another to give it 2 hours of reading and pondering. I suppose this is what separates true writers from people who have an opinion and can write; I, for one, can’t get myself to spend any more time on an idea I have already covered here, which could explain both the scarcity of content lately and the lack of continuity… but I digress.
The Dip is a motivational book, and I recommend reading it whenever you feel like giving up and going with the flow, not sticking your head high, taking the easy way. Time is the scarcest of resources, and it doesn’t make sense wasting it on being just 60% good, 40% happy, or 55% motivated.
Against the Code of Conduct
THIS IS MORE POLITICS THAN I’M WILLING TO ALLOW on this blog, but since it’s directly related to blogging itself, I have to take a position.
Why oppose the so-called “Blogger’s Code of Conduct“? It’s an overreaction. Trolls and hateful comments have been part of the internet culture since the Usenet, and no amount of regulation is going to eliminate them. And if it could, what price would bloggers have to pay? The administrative burder related to ensuring civility in comments would be especially taxing for sucessfull bloggers.
Every blogger should be clear about his or her values. And let the readers decide whether individual commenters respect them or not. And let the blog owner decide how to handle the obnoxious ones. It works - no badges necessary!
Clueless
HA! Again and again, I fall prey to April Fool’s jokes. Today, it was the Gmail Paper service that got off Slashdot, thought it over, hey that’s kinda cool, and didn’t realize what’s going on until I read about it on TechCrunch. Either I read too quickly… or, as I just realized, my permanent age is 6, maybe 7, and I just can’t resist believing. I may pretend I am 30 but apparently I’ll never get there.
A Saturday Rant
I’VE FELT QUITE UNEASY about my job title lately. Senior Consultant, goddamit.
In a company, you’re supposed to climb the ladder or there’s something wrong with you. So you climb. And the higher you get, the more ridiculous you feel, or maybe you don’t ‘cuz you feel high. You’ve got status, man. Super-duper consulting chief honcho.
Could I just have something like “go-to guy” or “gets shit done” line on my business card?
Status is for cowards.
Apropos Presently
I NEED TO ADD a few more comments to my earlier post, Presently Unimpressed.
The trend towards webbifying desktop apps is certainly there. I used Writely a couple of times and I could get the job done. In fact, if I really wanted to perform all my daily tasks in Firefox, I probably could. Why not?
I consider the act of creating a highly personal, even intimate, one. I need to be able to lay down on a couch with my laptop resting on my legs, unplug the LAN cable and shut down WiFi so that I can shield myself from interrupts. Some call it the Flow. I may need to share what I’ve done later but not before I am ready. For this very reason, I cannot live without desktop apps that don’t rely on the internet for functionality.
Writely and its ilk make me stay connected. You can suggest that I shut down Gaim and log off my email account but that’s not the same as being completely offline. The tempation to just check something up is there, luring in the background to cut into my Flow. Can’t have that.
So I am not modifying my earlier verdict; I am eager to see, however, what the business case for Google Apps is and whether there are uses I, a lone wolf, cannot see.
Technorati Tags: presently, writely, google apps
Bratislava the Beautiful
I just got back from Bratislava where I’ve been clocking oh-too-many hours for the past 3 months, and let me tell you this: though we Czechs tend to view our Eastern neighbor as part of Western Asia, Bratislava is actually many years ahead in terms of customer friendliness and general warmth that the city radiates.
The old town is amazing. Clean, tidy, atmospheric. Bars and hangouts are plentiful. Waiters remember you and what you had the last time. The list could go on and on.
No time to elaborate now, but I’ll get back to this shortly.
Technorati Tags: Bratislava, Slovakia
RE: rules of creativity
I LOVE the “how to be creative” essay written by Hugh McLeod over 2 years ago. One point I am not so sure is his #2: “The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to change the world.” Changing the world is a tempting proposition; in business and arts alike, though, you are more likely to make it if you aren’t afraid to use imitation. Also-rans have an undeservedly bad name!
And it’s not just about Microsoft for you Apple folks out there. Look: thoughout the history of classical music (now a stinky corpse), artists have followed up on one another so nicely you could almost connect the ending notes of A’s symphony to the opening theme of B’s. And that was long before mass-media and the internet! Early in the 20th century, composers wiped the slate clean and started anew; each developing his own syntax, semantics, and vocabulary. Without going into further detail, I am going to assert this was the primary reason why classical music became “classical” - ie, dead.
We are like charcoals, says our pastor, burning intensely when together and going cold when scattered. This is true for artists and entrepreneurs as it is for Christians. It’s the relationship economy, okay? No one flourishes in the void (does GapingVoid?)
Going back to our theme, I am not disputing the whole text or even the whole point #2; I am contemplating this bit:
Your idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be yours alone. The more the idea is yours alone, the more freedom you have to do something really amazing.
How many ideas can I claim to have originated? Sadly, not many. Maybe not even a couple. I cannot separate things I have said with those I have heard, and though I may re-mix and re-phrase to sound original, in the end I will have to give full credit to everyone I’ve talked to and had coffee with. So my interpretation of #2 is: own your ideas - and be humble. Somewhere, somebody is thinking the same thing. Which is why agree enthusiastically with #3: put the hours in. A company as well as a symphony is more a product of hard work than a brilliant idea that just happened to materialize.
Technorati Tags: creativity, gapingvoid
Taking Notes
I DO LINUX. It reminds me of the days when computing was fun (~ 20 years ago). Linux is playful and conductive to experimenting.
If you feel a connection here, you may find BasKet Note Pads just as useful as I do. It’s a KDE application that lets you to take notes (gasp!), attach files, images, etc., all that without forcing you to follow a pre-determined metaphor - such as folders and files. Nope - you create a so-called ‘basket’, specify layout (free-form or columns), and off you go. Drop notes, files, photos in the basket, move it around, and tag it for easy categorization. [screenshots]
Why and when use this instead of a Web 2.0 application such as stikkit? Apart from functionality that no Web app can give you (such as taking a screenshot and dropping it into the basket), BasKet is most useful when you gather ideas, analyze them, put them in context … and before you are ready to share them. Your desktop is a natural place for that to happen.
What I would like to see in the versions to come is a way of sharing the information once you are ready to do so. Now, you can export your basket as an HTML page. How about exporting it to a wiki? That would make the transition between, say, creating a draft and perfecting it with you team, a smooth experience. And that’s the point: desktop apps don’t just have to cooperate with one another, they need to build bridges to the Web 2.0 world to stay relevant.
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