Simply create an event titled Sprint 3 meeting from 2 to 4 pm and it will create the event Sprint 3 meeting and assign it the right information. I thought this was awesome and wondered how Apple came up with this feature and why they took the time to focus on this. Then, I saw the iOS 5 keynote and met Siri. Now it all makes sense and I am eager to hire my virtual personal assistant.

Steve Jobs was a visionary. The respect he got from the tech industry is well deserved.

1. Go to System Preferences > Users & Groups.
2. Make sure your user is selected on the left and go to the Login Items tab
3. Go to the Finder and press Cmd+K and connect to your network drive. Make sure to save the password to your keychain.
   
4. A Finder window opens showing the content of your network drive. Press Cmd + up arrow key to go up a level
5. Drag and Drop your network volume in the Login Items window
   
6. Check the box Hide left to your Volume in the list so the window won’t open at every boot up
7. Close the System Preferences, you’re all set

A quick note on how to share a USB drive over your private network (Network Attached Storage) using a router running on the DD-WRT firmware. Needless to say, your router needs to have a USB port for this feature to be enabled in the firmware.

1. Plug the drive in your router USB port and turn it on
2. Simply login to your router administration console (default credentials are root:admin)
3. Go to the Services tab.
4. Go to the USB sub tab and enable the core USB support and the USB storage support. Also, I recommend enabling the auto drive mount.
5. Select your disk mount point i.e. /mnt and apply settings
6. The router will mount the drive and give you information about your device
7. Go to the NAS sub tab and enable the Samba sharing (or FTP if you so desire). Enter your workgroup information and create a share. It should look as follow :
   Path /mnt
   Name nDrive (enter what you want there)
   Public unchecked (you can check this box if you don’t wish any user management for your data)
   Access Read/Write (you can change this to Read Only)
8. Below, create users and give them access to your device.

• how do you teach a child two languages (hoping the child won’t mix them up)
• do you have to declare/pay taxes in your country of origin ?
• which address do you give your bank counselor when opening your account ?
• how do you transfer money from your bank in country A to your bank in country B ?

Anyway, one of the problems expats might have is accessing websites who have an IP-based location check (ie bank account management site, checkout, etc).

Eventually, if the problem is recurrent, you can solve it permanently using a router and a VPN which will give you an IP based in the country of your choice. I tested this setup myself and hre’s what I learnt.

What you will need

1. Get an account with a VPN provider such as strongVPN. I tested the Lite Open package (monthly fee).
   If you only have one computer, the strongVPN account is all you need. Download the software they provide and you can have a foreign IP at will. If you have more than one machine or various devices you want to use with a foreign IP, read on…
2. Buy a DD-WRT compatible router. Since strongVPN offers detailed tutorials for the Linksys ones, I tested one of them, the E3000.
3. Download the quick config from your strongVPN customer area (it is a zip file)

Setup your network

If you already have a router (you probably do as most Internet boxes do create one for you), you will now have two. Basically, you will have two subnets. Depending on which network you use, you will or not have a foreign IP.

Here’s how it looks :

To achieve this, plug a network cable between your new router and your computer. Access your router configuration page, usually at http://192.168.1.1. Login using admin as a login and admin as a password. In the main section, change your router IP to something like 192.168.2.1 / 255.255.255.0 and enter 192.168.1.254 (or whatever your other router IP is) as the gateway. Setup the DHCP to assign addresses like 192.168.2.2 to 192.168.2.50 for example.

If you so desire, enable the wifi of your new router.

Restart your new router. Connect your old router to the new one using a LAN port (not the WAN port) on both ends. Now, if you connect your computer to the old router, your IP will be like 192.168.1.X and you must be able to access the Internet. If you connect your computer to the new router, your IP will be like 192.168.2.X and you should still be able to access the Internet.

If you got this step right, you can go ahead and flash your router firmware.

Configure your router to use the VPN

First, we must modify the router’s firmware to run DD-WRT. This is an open source firmware that aims to make router administration easy (and consistent) while enabling as many features as possible for each device.

If you did get a router listed for easy setup on strong VPN website, I advise you to download your firmware file from there.

If your device is not listed there, get your firmware file from DD-WRT database.

If you did get the Linksys E3000, here are the two files you will need :

1. dd-wrt.v24-16785_NEWD-2_K2.6_std_usb_nas-e3000.bin
2. dd-wrt.v24-17201_NEWD-2_K2.6_big-nv60k.bin

Now, it’s time to flash the firmware. Login to your router administration page. Go to administration > upgrade firmware. Select the first file (the upgrade file) and click on start upgrade. Your router will reboot. Return to the same page, select the second file and click on start upgrade again. This time, after reboot, your administration page will look different as you are now running DD-WRT.

Login to your router administration using root as login and admin as password. In the Setup > Basic Setup section, enter the following for DNS servers :

1. 216.131.95.20
2. 216.131.94.5

Reboot your router and make sure that you can still connect to the Internet using this new router.

Now, it’s time to setup the router to use the VPN access. Go to Commands and enter the content of the quick config file (downloaded earlier) in the textarea. Click on Save Custom Script. The page reloads, type sh /tmp/custom.sh in the textarea and click on run commands. The page reloads again. Clear the textarea and click on Save Custom Script again. Reboot the router. Now, your router should use the VPN access. If you are using this router, whatsmyip.org should tell you that your IP appears to be in the country you selected when opening your VPN account. Instructions with screenshots can be found on strongVPN website.

Note: If your IP is still the same (your usual IP), you need to contact strongVPN support and ask them to make sure your VPN account is able to work with this setup. If it isn’t, they will adjust it in a matter of seconds.

Test

Connect, either using a network cable or Wifi, your computer to the new router. Go to a website to get to know your IP such as whatsmyip.org and you should now see that your external IP is the one of your VPN provider (in the country of your choice). Hopefully, now, you can use your online banking site or whatever other site which was blocking you for being abroad.

Support

 If you’re having a problem, you could leave a comment on this blog but actually, your best bet is to check the DD-WRT forums. If you did go with strongVPN, you’re in luck, their support is awesome. They have what they call “Live Help” which means some of their support staff can anser you via online chat or even using Skype. Simply head over the Live Help page and find a DD-WRT guru. You will be given his Skype name and be told when he comes on duty. They are super nice and extremely helpful. You can also visit their forums hoping that someone runs the same hardware you bought.

It works, now what ?

 Okay, so, besides using your connection to access your country of origin banking website and such, this is also a workaround to use country based restricted websites or applications such as Netflix, Hulu or Pandora. I have actually had the opportunity to test this setup and Netflix so, if that’s what you’re doing…

Netflix : two extra tips

1. If it stops working on an AppleTV 2, hard reboot (unplug / replug from power source) the device
2. If it doesn’t work on iPad, edit your network settings and use Google DNS servers (IP 8.8.8.8)

I upgraded to Lion and everything went fine. Just a minor – known – issue with MySQL server as installed by the Zend Server Community Edition.

I already wrote about solving the mysql error which prevents the server from starting. Researching this again, I found more information about it. Whether running on OS X or any other OS, it appears that these PID errors are permission related.

The two errors I get are :

1. ERROR – MySQL PID file could not be found
2. ERROR – Manager of pid-file quit without updating file

First, when upgrading to Lion, it appears that the zend user is deleted. As a result, all the files owner by zend are now owned by nobody. The only way I found to recreate the user was to reinstall Zend Server Community Edition without removing the current installation. All my data remained untouched… Apache configuration, PHP configuration and mySQL data stayed so that was not a problem. On the other hand, that did not fix the permission issues. The correct ownerships and permissions are not restored by the installation process. Eventually, I got the server to restart with the following permissions in place.

Here are the permissions for the files in /usr/local/zend/mysql :

drwxrwxr-x  49 root  wheel  1666 Jul 22 11:19 bin
drwxrwxr-x  62 zend  wheel  2108 Jul 31 10:12 data
drwxr-x—   6 root  wheel   204 Mar  8 16:28 data.dist
drwxrwxr-x  24 root  wheel   816 Jul 22 11:20 lib
drwxrwxr-x   3 root  wheel   102 Jul 22 11:19 scripts
drwxrwxr-x  13 root  wheel   442 Jul 22 11:19 share
drwxrwxr-x   3 zend  wheel   102 Jul 31 10:12 tmp

Basically, the folders data and tmp must belong to zend, the others, to root.

So, reinstalling the server, following my own instructions regarding permissions, fixed the Zend Server Community MySQL server for Mac OS X Lion. No other upgrade problem to report. Awesome job by the OS X Team.

The location of the data can be set in the my.cnf file BUT, don’t be alarmed, this file doesn’t exist on OS X by default. The server works without it and the file is for you to create if you need to change the server’s default behavior…

Steps :

1. Download and install mysql for OS X
2. Install the preference pane. Start your server to make sure it works. Stop it again as we need to alter the configuration.
3. Move your data folder where you wish to have it i.e.

   1	mv /usr/local/mysql/data /home/<user>/Applications/mysql/data

4. Copy the file my-small.cnf in /etc and name it my.cnf

   1	sudo cp /usr/local/mysql/support-files/my-small.cnf /etc/my.cnf

5. Edit this configuration file

   1	sudo vi /etc/my.cnf

6. Change the data path : datadir=/home/<user>/…./data
   Note: if you use innodb, change the innodb data location directive as well
7. Launch your mysql server again, it should start normally, if not, review the steps above as something must have gone wrong

Some of the movies I wanted to have on the iPad came from DVD (no Blu-Ray player for me at this point) and one video was a mkv file. So the first step was to import these files in a format that would suit iTunes.

For the DVDs, I used Handbrake.

Here is the procedure :

• Download and install Handbrake.
• Launch Handbrake
• Insert your DVD
• Click on Source (top left button) and select your DVD > VIDEO_TS folder.

  

• Handbrake will read the DVD and determine the chapters to rip in order to import only the movie (no special feeatures, no menus, etc)
• If you don’t see the presets drawer on the right, click on “Toggle presets” in order to see them
• I selected and used the Apple TV2 preset myself for my rips though I read the iPhone 4 preset would have worked, too
• I then adjusted these settings somewhat following the recommendations at the end of this forum post
  - In the main window, adjust the framerate (FPS) to 25 (if your DVD is PAL/region2)
  - click on Picture Settings (top toolbar) and change the anamorphic to strict 

  
  - click on Filters (the tab at the top) and adjust
  - detelecine to default
  - decomb to deinterlace (push the cursor to the right)
  - deinterlace to slow
  - denoise to medium

  

• You can then click on Preview to see what your movie will look like
• Finally, in the main window, you can modify the destination file path
• When everything is set, click on Start

The encoding process takes about 1.5 times the movie length for me here…

Of course, if you know better presets for Handbrake to work specifically for a given device (especially the iPad2) feel free to share them in the comments. Your help is welcome.

For the MKV file conversion to MP4 I used the trial version of Video Converter for Mac

• Download and install the product
• Drag and drop the video(s) you need to convert
• Once again, select the preset that suits you best (it can be iPad or Apple TV)
• Adjust the framesize (if your source is HD and you have an iPad2, you might want to increase the output framesize)
• Click on Convert

You can find more information on how to use Video Converter in the editor’s website documentation.

That process was very time consuming on my computer… much more than the rips from my original DVD though I must add that the resulting video, on the iPad2, is wonderful. The HD source made all the difference in the world compared to the DVD sourced material. NO, I WILL NOT BUY ALL MY DVDs AGAIN AS BLU-RAY DISCS but I’m sure some of them would benefit from the upgrade…

MP4 to iTunes to iPad

Both Handrake and Video Converter for Mac created for us some mp4 files. These files must be added to the iTunes Library.

I also feel the need to tag them. I need the director name, the release date and the cover – at least… I found the artwork in very high res at getvideoartwork. As for the tagging, a very detailed article at iLounge.com covers the subject of video management within iTunes.

Once your movies are ready, simply sync all your movies (or a selection on them) with your device (which could be an iPad or iPhone)

That’s it, book a long flight for your next holidays and enjoy your movies

In any case, one way to always be able to download all the photos in a Picasa web album to your computer is to user the RSS feed of the album and the Firefox “Down Them All” extension.

Here’s how :

• Install the Down Them All addon for Firefox (and restart the browser if necessary)
• Browse to the Picasa album you wish to download the photos from
• Click on the RSS link at the bottom right of the page
  
• Launch Down Them All by going to Tools > Down Them All! Tools > Down Them All!…
• By default, all the images are selected for download
  
• Validate the destination for the download
• Click Start

Nice and easy, enjoy your photos and keep in mind the flip side to this “trick”. Whatever settings you use when you upload your photos to the Internet, they are easily downloaded by whoever stumbles on them… As far as I know, there is no real privacy for your photos once uploaded on Picasa (or Flickr) which they both make clear in their terms of use.

At the same time, we are constantly on the lookout for solutions to enjoy our music collection (and movies collection) across devices, wherever we are.

A lot of recent events indicate that we are not alone in this quest and that it will only get better and better in time.

Recently, of course, Apple introduced the Remote App for iPhone/iPad, AirPlay followed by iTunes Match… In the Unix World, a lot of things already exist as well : Pulse to stream audio across devices and projects like Music Player Daemon (which is nothing but new). Media Center are also making the news frequently (Windows Media Center, Boxee, Plex) and commercial solutions (Music streamingm VoD) like Spotify, Netflix and Hulu are slowly forcing DVD and Blu-Ray Discs pricing down.

Dematerialized solutions are the way of the future but several problem remain :

• how to organize one’s library (how to merge dematerialized bought content and ripped content from CDs and in our case even vinyls that we already had)
• how to make this content accessible across devices (especially in a multi-platform environment)
• how to stream this content on various speakers in the same house
• how to remotely control what we play in each room
• finally, can we somehow enjoy our content even on the move
• (I don’t even mention syncing across devices, the size of our collection makes that totally impossible, the content has to stay in one place)
• (other issues include the ever needed backup management)

We are currently waiting to test some of these solutions (we do not have an AirPlay receiver for example though that will soon arrive).

For now, I’ll focus on one part of our solution : Music Player Daemon.

Music Player Daemon (definition) is a server side music player. It allows to queue and play music files (in various formats) accessible to it via the file system. MPD can be controlled remotely using a wide range of clients (desktop, mobile or web based).

An example ? We have several computers in the house. One of them is the “Media Center”. It has the Music Hard Drive hooked to it and is (mostly) always on. Because it is the “Media Center” it is the computer that has the good sound system attached (whether that means a 5.1 speaker set or a connection to a Home Amplifier System, whatever). Basically, this is the computer that should play music. Why would you listen to a song using your laptop speakers when you can play the same song on your great expensive speaker set ?

So what you do, if you are in your house and connected to your home network, is remotely control what song your “Media Center” computer should play. Using a MPD client, you can browse your Music Library (and your playlists) and just play any of them on your great sound system. The good news is that you can do this using Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, iPad and even AppleTV.

Of course, this only answers some of the problems mentioned above (there will more than likely be several more articles on related subjects in this blog in the future). MPD does not offer a solution to the online streaming (at least not directly) not does it solve the problem of playing music acrosse the house on various speaker sets (it only plays on the machine it is installed on). But that’s already a first step to our goal : an ubiquitous access to our Music and Movies Collections.

Some Technical Notes

Setting up the server

Debian

Mac OS X

Configure mpd by editing /etc/mpd.conf or /opt/local/etc/mpd.conf and set the path to your logs, music library, etc.

Start the server (either manually with mpd) or automatically with an /etc/init.d type script

More information

The MPD Community Wiki (new to me) reveals that the project has been pretty active lately which is excellent news.

• MPD Install procedures
• MPD on OS X
• Configuring MPD
• Installing and using MPD on AppleTV

MPD Clients

Now that I’ve described how to setup your MPD server, you will need a client to play your music from anywhere. I switched to Mac OS X about a year ago and this is now my primary system. We also run some Windows machine. I use Debian as well but most of the time, that’s only as a server (ie no graphical interface there)

Windows:

QMPDClient: our favorite client on Windows is QMPDClient. The client suit us best because it didn’t choke on the size of our collection and it handles both file system and tag views.

QMPDClient has been extended with another project QMPDClient-ne which should also run on Windows though I haven’t tested it on this platform.

Linux:

MPD being a project that came from the Linux world, most clients are aiming for this platform.

Currently, I have tested:

QMPDclient (so that Derrick and I can run the same software on both systems)
QMPDClient also has a package available via apt/aptitude for Debian.

QMPDclient-ne in order to see what enhancements have been added like the possibility to pull up lyrics.

QtMPC, another Qt4 based client.

Mac OS X:

Theremin is the most famous Mac OS MPD client as it is written in Cocoa and therefore has the Mac aqua style. Another plus, it has a growl connector.

About a year ago, I had tested Kea2 which was in an alpha stage. It seems to have disappeared.

iPhone / iPad

I’ve tested MPoD for iPhone and will probably try MPaD for iPad soon.

Where to go from there ?

There is a lot more to do on this Music system of ours. We are still looking for a great Music Client (iTunes doesn’t cut it for us at all, our collection is too big for the sorting and management offered) but we want to enjoy solutions like AirPlay. We also hope to see more AirPlay (or similar) received come out in order, one day, to have speakers in every room and a way to play music where we want. Stay tuned…

Here are the installation steps :

Download and run the sshwindows installer.

As the setup will tell you, some simple commands will be needed to complete the installation. Launch the windows command line tool (windows key -> type cmd -> press enter) and head to the directory in which you installed open ssh.

The steps needed to complete the installation are detailed in the docs folder in two files : quickstart.txt will quickly sum up the steps while the readme.txt is a more detailed setup and troubleshooting guide.

Below is a step by step process on what I had to do to get the server running :

According to the quickstart guide, everything should work at this point but that was not the case for me.
I had permission errors with the rsa and das key files

Below is the message I saw :

I solved that problem by using chown and chmod available in the bin folder to change the persmission on these files. As I found out trying to run chown, I needed a cygintl-2.dll file which I didn’t have on that computer. I ended up copying it from another computer running an up to date install of cygwin. In this up to date version, cygintl-2 was called cygintl-8, I renamed it. If you need to, download cygintl-2.dll and cygwin1.dll and place them in your OpenSSH\bin directory. Note that you will need to replace the existing cygwin1.dll.

That’s it, at this point, the server starts. You can kill it (CTRL+C) and start it as a Windows service by running

Time to test our SSH server with a client. On a different computer, run a SSH client (if the other computer is running Windows, you can use putty).

At this point, it worked for me ! Now I can connect to a Windows 7 using SSH and that makes Windows a lot cooler ! Thanks to the developer, Michael Johnson.

Going further, the public key authentication

Since my goal, with all this, was to script the use of VLC from a Unix machine on the Windows one, I could use the public key authentication to bypass the interactive authentication.

The SSH public key authentication system is based on the private and public keys which are expected in the user’s home folder (in a folder called .ssh). So the first step will be to define the user’s home folder on windows.

Since I’m not using cygwin but open ssh for windows, it’s only the declaration of the home folder in openssh that I care for. I edited the file in c:\Program Files (x86)\OpenSSH\etc\passwd and changed the value before last (each value is separated by a . I changed the home folder for my user to /cygdrive/c/Users/<username>. Now I can go in my c:\Users\<username> folder and create a folder called .ssh. I recommend creating this folder using the command window as I don’t think it is possible with the graphical interface.

At this point, you need a public key which you should generate with the command

Now, the idea is to place my user’s public key in this folder in a file called authorized_keys. Since I’ve already setup my public key, I simply add to place it in that folder and do :

Edit your ssh server configuration file and make sure the Public Key authorization is not commented (it was okay for me by default)

From your client computer, connect again using ssh <username>@<windows_ip> and you shouldn’t be prompted for a password anymore.

Now, I can simply launch commands on the windows machine by doing

Finally, moving on with my project which I’ll describe in this blog upon completion. ’till then, hope this tip helps