Why I hate iTunes

Once upon a time I remember telling someone how much I hated iTunes. The only problem was I couldn't remember all the reasons. So I'm going to keep a list here:

I am forced to use it for certain things like using my airport and iphone- there aren't many if any other options.

They always try to force feed my computer safari and some other mobileme software when I do an update. And it seems to update more than I actually use the program. As if that isn't enough it wants me to reboot when it updates... it's like im stuck in the 90's with all these reboots

Just now I clicked on something and it just locked up for like 5 seconds without and kind of indication it was working on something.

During an update it just crashed/closed for apparently no reason.. that or it knew when I hit the submit button on this blog ;)

It's always asking me if I agree with stuff before I can continue.. does anybody ever actually read that, it is very very very long? I guess there are so many lawyers that they need something to do?

x11 through ssh tunnel on windows

Got xwindows to work on windows:

1. install cygwin , make sure you install the x11 package. This can take a while, you may (haven't tested) only need
xorg-server
xinit
xorg-docs
X-start-menu-icons
2. run c:\cygwin\bin\startxwin.exe (starts x11 server)
3. in putty, enable x11 forwarding for your session
4. connect ssh

client certificates

We built a new web server and the script that was supposed to grab a client certificate wasn't parsing the certificate correctly. It was returning a bunch of "pz8" and some other garbage. I found one post of someone that had the exact same problem (with no answer) at:
"http://www.derkeiler.com/Newsgroups/microsoft.public.platformsdk.security/2004-06/0072.html"

This is the asp code that grabs the certificate:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/216831

I couldn't figure out how to reply to that post so I thought I would post the solution here. Luckily, I found this not so easy to find KB that has the solution to the problem: "http://support.microsoft.com/kb/886810"
The solution is to add a key/dword to the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ASP\Parameters
DisableCertificateBlobAsArray=1

writing style

I basically use free flowing style to write my blog, but when I write papers for school I do focus on style. I found a decent guide for writing style (http://www.crockford.com/wrrrld/style.html). Most of it I already knew but there were a few things I learned from the guide and all of it is useful.

MIT lectures

Every wonder what lectures at MIT are like? OCW allows anyone to access many MIT lectures.

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

FCC

I went to an Expo last Saturday and talked to the FCC. I asked them about net neutrality and they really had no idea what I was talking about. I'm not sure who is protecting the consumer from a virtual monopoly on household internet connectivity. Maybe someone should ask Al Gore.

Integrating Internet and Home Theater

So I've been tooling around with my home theater design. Canceling cable and only having a netflix account and a huge antenna really felt limiting. All the media is going to the internet now and I wanted a way to watch or listen to the internet on my Home Theater. I found out this is a fun hobby!

It all started out when I had a party and wanted to pump music into our den when I found an Apple Airport for 50 bucks on craigslist. After setting it up I found out hmmm.. this is interesting, I'm using one Itunes to access all my media libraries and control what is being pumped out to the airport or any shared speakers for that matter. I found out I could use my Iphone as a remote for the whole thing. (BTW, this would work for an Itouch too) How cool! This all works via some magical thing called Bonjour.

Anyway, I had the same glorious music tracks permeating almost every room of my house. How ubiquitous... great for parties! Now we can do that choochoo train dance thing all through the house and never lose the beat! You really have to see it to understand.

So this lead me to look into hooking up my TV/Home stereo to the internet. Well at first I found a dlink media server on craigs list but the girl I wanted to buy it from flaked out on me. Then, I realized that I had an old desktop with XP on it that I didn't use laying around. So one DVI to HDMI converter later I connected the PC to my stereo and TV.

Great, I have HD now and a computer connected to it but I want to do more than Itunes don't I? So how do I control it. I didn't really want to use a wireless mouse/keyboard on the couch because the pointer was so small. Remote desktop wouldn't work because it kicks the console out to let you log in. The answer was VNC! I could console straight in from my macbook sitting on the couch (which I normally keep near the couch anyway).

So I'm really loving this setup. I'm streaming stuff from my netflix account and I also recommend hulu.com (Battlestar Galactica / Heroes!). My "media server" / PC didn't have a DVD player hence the older post about streaming DVD's using VLC. There are so many things I can do now. Not only can I control it from my laptop but my wife can use her own laptop to control it or I can use my Iphone! I wonder if there is a VLC client for the Iphone so that I'm not restricted to using the itunes remote.

Now if Cox would pay for ESPN360 like many other ISP's =( After canceling cable the only thing I really miss is ESPN. Other ISP's do have this available and I am considering switching.

The next phase of the project will probably be to add a tuner to my media server so that I can take the input from the huge yagi I have in the attic and record/pause/rewind it. Over the air TV is still one of the few sources of HD quality video I have coming in right now. HD video has such high bandwidth needs you don't see a lot of it. Hulu has 420p which is pretty good and a lot of sources for media call their content HD but it is not. It has to be at least 720p to truly be HD, ideally it would be 1024. I read somewhere compressed HD requires somewhere on the order of 5 mb/s.

I'm also looking at a way to stream in ESPN and possibly take things beyond my router to allow myself to watch and control things away from home. I don't think it would be hard to do.