Tech, Gaming and Bile!
alphaxion
(4 comments, 169 posts)
Posts by alphaxion
I gots me a new camera!
011 months ago
It appears the government took a little too much tax off of me in the financial year of 2010 to 2011 and decided to drop a surprising cheque through our letterbox.
As any good geek does, I set about planning how to spend that money!
Yes, there were too many options running through my head – do I build a new system, since I’ve had my current one since 2008. Or how about a new monitor to replace my good old 2005 vintage Dell ultrasharp 24″?
Then I remembered how disgruntled I have been with my old Canon HF100 camcorder of late and how I’d love to have my own DSLR to not only up my video production game (and get back to doing so once again) but also to have a kick arse camera by my side after only ever owning point and shoots.
It was decided then and there, I’d treat myself to my first ever DSLR…
Learning how to manually control a camera has been quite an eye opener after years of only knowing automatics – and is so much fun.
Here’s some example photo’s I have taken so far with the beast:
My first photo with the 600D
A shield bug being taken apart by ants
Shireoaks train station
Some graffiti at Shireoaks train station
Some more graffiti, only this time under a bridge in Tinsley, Sheffield
A decrepit door in Sheffield city centre
As you can see, I’m just having a play around right now and finding out how to use the various options and more importantly when to use them. When it comes to the video capabilities, that I’m also working on and have a fun idea on how I can mix both playing around with the camera and creating content. Expect to see more in the future!
In the mean time, you can see my latest pictures over on Flickr.
verticalslice.tv – we can rebuild her!
0As mentioned in my mini-post recently, I am currently rebuilding the verticalslice.tv website with a view to converting it into an Internet TV portal, rather than the single show, blog-style it is currently sporting.
This gives me the chance to really play with CSS, PHP and (attempt) SQL in ways that I never have before. It’s not gonna be pretty and I may still end up in a huff at not being able to get the job done >.<
During the arduous task of designing and building the new site, I will be recording a sort of comedy diary-type affair titled “We Can Rebuild Her”, where I will chronicle my hap-hazard attempts to put the site together with almost no knowledge on what I’m doing! I plan on dragging you guys into the hell-hole nightmare fun with me!
After a bunch of screaming at the monitor as if I were lost in a creative tundra, I now have the basics of a layout for the index page… it needs a few items adding to it, such as the itunes, youtube and plex (yeah, I’m going to be publishing to plex once this is off the ground) logos to the blurb under the highlights carousel and the Latest section needs filling in.
I think it’s getting there as a design, still needs a bit doing to it but it’s certainly workable as a landing page. Eventually I’ll be carving out the show pages and getting the backend working… but this will do for now. I worry at the SQL component needed for that *shudder*
To turn the layout into HTML, I have built up a map using the <DIV> tag. Doing it this way allows me to see just where I can split the page up into logical units and where I can push certain aspects into being includes. It also means I’m not staring blankly at the layout crafted in Photoshop, confused as to where I need to start.
That’s everything for this short update, as I build up the HTML it is being uploaded to http://www.verticalslice.tv/revamp and, after some tweaks to the layout, I will be recording episode one of We Can Rebuild Her… the fun has begun 
itunes stopped working in a virtual machine?
0Trying to sync my iPad with the iTunes library I have running in a VirtualBox virtual machine kept failing. I’d get spurious “error -5000″ messages or simply that it had failed to start. Further investigation brought to light the strange fact that I couldn’t even play any files and podcasts would download but fail to be added to the library. Trying to play the files using the built in network sharing to other iTunes clients would fail too.
What could be causing it?
End tasking and even a reboot didn’t cure things. I began to wonder if it was a change in iTunes itself, maybe Apple had disabled the use of a mapped drive for your library. Can’t be, things stopped working some days after I had updated iTunes. I then thought about the fact that the drive mapping was via the shared folders within VirtualBox rather than a straight up CIFS mapping. More recently, I had updated VirtualBox itself, maybe I forgot to update the virtual tools too? Could that be causing it?
One install and reboot later and iTunes is behaving itself! So, if you have the same problem I’d recommend ensuring your version of the virtual tools installed in the guest OS matches the version of VirtualBox you are powering it with.
Problem solved, podcasts synced and a smile brought back to my face 
Videos from the archive – Press To Continue 2
0Video number 2 in the Press To Continue series, if you want me to restart production of them just let me know @alphaxion.
Videos from the archive – Press To Continue
0I thought I’d repost some of the various videos I have created over the years. This one got me an honorable mention in the 2010 Escapist Film Festival. Still think it should have won me a contract to produce them!
A little something planned
0I have a project coming up, something I’ve been putting off for a while now – only this time I plan on producing a series of podcasts covering said project.
What am I planning? The migration of my old win2k3 AD and Exchange 2k3 server with win7 based TVPC’s to a linux based solution running as virtual machines for the servers and physical linux desktops for the media PC’s.
Win2k3 and its exchange server are getting long in the tooth, technologies are passing it by and I’m no-longer a windows only household since I added a virtual Ubuntu machine, macbook and an iphone into the mix. I’d like to be able to sync mail and calendar natively without having to bodge support into my current servers.
The hope is to end up with a server infrastructure that can be migrated between physical machines without needing to reconfigure/reinstall all the time – and to be easier to introduce future technologies or replacement services while making good use of the computing power.
As my OS of choice, I’ll be using Ubuntu server 10.0.4 LTS for the virtual machine host and guests, with VMWare server providing the virtualisation. This means I’ll have a stable server environment until 2015. For the desktops, I’ll stick with Ubuntu desktop.
So, initially, the core services I hope to produce are:
- LDAP (to replace Active Directory’s user control)
- DHCP and DNS (Because I prefer the control of running my own, plus I find consumer routers tend to lock up if you give them DHCP duties)
- Email (Zimbra to allow the syncing of mail and calendars)
- PXE OS deployment (Currently use WDS to install all my windows machines, can get rid of burning CD’s and juggling ISO’s)
- Internal Patch Management (WSUS handles updates in windows fantastically, no more grabbing them all from the net)
- Dedicated web server to migrate this very site to (Various issues with its current deployment)
I’m contemplating throwing my own voip server into the mix, however my use of Skype has dropped to near nil anyway. We’ll see how things go. Also coming under the heading of “we’ll see” would be running my own network monitoring software and a house intranet, something I keep loving the thought of but never bothering to use once I deploy one >.<
As I mentioned, this project is something I plan on recording and releasing as a video podcast since I think the subject would be interesting to others.
Keep your eyes open for future developments!
A little help for you
0For those who know, my 30th is rolling ever closer like a London Underground train with no power, mercilessly bearing down on the hapless souls in its path.
For the inevitable “what do you want?” questions, I decided to put together a list of items – a sort of wish-list, if you will – instead of my usual “just surprise me”. So here goes:
- New SDHC cards for my camcorder – these are dirt cheap on the likes of ebuyer or amazon, 8Gb and 16Gb appear to be the sweet spots right now.
- A new HDD – 1Tb, 7200RPM along the lines of this.
-
These - Whatever their real name beyond "clips" are, a little bag of them would help a lot with my greenscreen.
- Clothes – TShirts, cheap combats etc… Tho, if you get me slippers, socks and a “smoking gown” I’ll have a sense of humour malfunction, not to be confused with a wardrobe malfunction ;P
- DVB-S tuner card, either USB or internal. Not sure what I mean? This. But remember, DVB-S (Freesat) not DVB-T (freeview, since we’re in the valley of TV signal death and can’t get any).
- A job. Seriously, this unemployed lark is getting annoying now.
- DVD’s – Movies or TV shows, due to my transitioning from 20′s to 30′s I am, predictibly, in an 80′s kick with the occasional flirtation with “classics” such as Singin’ In The Rain. However, as you know I have a rather extensive collection and you’d be advised to double check with Kim as to whether I already have it.
- Elixer of youth – Alcohol. Never hurts (until the day after).
If I think of anything else, I’ll add it to this post.
Small update
0Quite a few changes since my last post.
Lets see…
I have also spent a bit of time plotting and scheming about how to turn verticalslice.tv into an Internet TV network. I’m sketching out a new site design and coming up with a collection of shows to record and put up. Press To Continue will be one of them, there will be a new tech show and an internet/current events news show.
Then there’s an idea for a show where people will submit movie scenes and I will try to re-enact them. It sounds a bit lame with just that small description, but I’ll be doing it while showing how I did the re-enactment plus I hope to inject a little strangeness into them too.