Root6 support never does this!

Every time Windows update changes (now running at v.5) there is some DLL or other on all my machines that needs to be re-registered. I suddenyl started getting an "Error number: 0x80244001" which (as it turns out) needs the following run from a command prompt:

regsvr32 msxml3.dll

Why I'll never use BT again - A couple of years ago the company I was working for had to provide a video-over-IP terminal to a client for remote VHS duplication - I had to organise the installation of a leased 512kbit line into the client's premises (but we would pay for the install and lease). I ordered the install and felt very pleased with myself for calling the Post Office ahead of time to confirm the post-code. The day the job was due to happen I called BT to confirm and they told me the job had been cancelled by engineering because I'd given them the wrong post-code.

"But I got the postcode from the Post Office - surely they are the people who do post-codes?"

"Sorry sir - it's not the one engineering have on file for that building"

"OK, to avoid this happening again can you please tell me what post-code engineering have on file so I can re-schedule the job and be confident it won't get bounced back again?"

"I'm sorry sir, engineering won't disclose that information"

Eventually I did get the line installed and the day it was livened up I found myself sitting on the floor of the client's comms room with my laptop connected to the new router and no return pings from their end - I could see a carrier on the line, but no data. So, I called BT again and gave the various job numbers etc. and got the reply:

"I'm sorry sir, that line isn't due come on line until 2099"

He honestly said that without a hint of irony!

Issues with the mains - when building TV facilities I always go to great lengths to keep the technical and domestic mains separate - well, to be more precise I ensure there is a clean technical earth derived from the same point in all areas where signals flow.
I had a worried couple of hours yesterday with one room that had huge hum over all the signals - running cables around the corridor in case the wiremen had run signal cables a long way along a mains tray made no difference - measuring earth discepency to the 16A C-Form connector on the wall showed no standing earth current yet when everything was plugged up the monitors looked like they didn't know the tune (humming!). Eventually I found an earth-neutral reverse in the Olsen block and the problem was solved.

Now, this client have their own substation, so I was even more suprised there was so much potential difference between neutral and earth, but was glad to have found the fault none the less.

Very wee hard drive!

I spotted this article in my institute's magazine and was blown away - how tiny! We'll be getting a Unity in a matchbox!

Tektronix video site is a superb resource not only for their products but for all manner of info on test signals etc.

RF distribution

When building TV facilities there is often the requirement to include an RF ring main of some sort so that office dwellers can see off-air channels and even channels modulated on in the building - it's good to know that channel 6 (for example) on every TV or VHS in the building is seeing the output of the studio (for example).
Having trained at the beeb I'm very familiar with the old method of having a launch-amplifier that sends RF on a passive distribution, typically sending initially at 100dBuV and using attenuators whenever a TV or VHS is connected to the "ring". This system is robust and once implemented is cheap to scale - all you need at each TV is a passive attenuator. The only design consideration is that you keep track of the attenuation introduced by the co-ax and use local attenuators to feed the TVs.
The only down-side to this method is that in the last twenty years everyone has a domestic VHS on their desk as well as a TV and even the best designed modulator input stages leak signal back out of their inputs - you'll see a tiny amount of the tape output of a VHS on it's RF input - not a problem at home because that tiny signal (typ. less than a dBuV) stops at the antenna. In an RF ring main it all accumulates and the overall ring gets a bit noisier. Go to any aging BBC facility and the engineers will tell you how noisy the RF is and it's not down to the quality of the components - it's all those VHS machines (and now PC TV cards, PlayStations etc.) leaking a tiny bit of signal back up their inputs.
And now I will show you a better way!
Hotels tend to use multi-output RF DAs that have individually isolated outputs - it by-passes this problem. The issue is that now you have to run RF cable to every desk or room but you can abuse the system a lot more with no impact on the quality of the RF. Since we've moved away from 10Base2 to 10/100/1000BaseT (or even fibre) networking we're used to running cables per person rather than big rings you tap off I don't see that (at install time anyway) it is such an issue.
Suffice to say I use the latter (at our current MTV install as well as every other facility I've built).

Intel SR2200 server keyboard/mouse conundrum!

Ben Davison and I were installing a dual-server Avid Unity rig at MTV (it's the fail-over config with two Media Managers seeing the fibre array) - both servers, once rack'ed up would boot once and then never boot again (couldn't even see the BIOS screen) - if we extracted the machine from the bay it would boot fine - back in the rack and it would boot once then nada. Very frustrating - the fault was found to be the little PS/2 breakout adaptor - the SR2200 has only one PS/2 socket on the back and the breakout for mouse and keyboard isn't marked - if you get it the wrong way round (keyboard plugged into mouse hole etc.) it does the above - crazy considering the server clearly sees the keyboard and mouse on that first good boot!

Development of ternary computers at Moscow State University

I'm sure Woody Guthrie would approve!

The lamest bit of phishing I've seen!

Why I still dislike Apple and all they do
Yesterday I had to set up a edit suite based around FinalCut ProHD (v 4.1) - what a painful experience. No extra internal hardware on the G5 - plain vanilla machine with a fresh install of Panther and 1gig of RAM. The first four attempts at opening the capture tool resulted in the machine throwing a kernal panic and me having to re-boot (if it were really Unix I could have fired up a command prompt and KILL'ed the process - but that's another story!). Apparently this is well known if there is no video input but I intentially made sure there was stable video on all three inputs!

Anyhow

• This typifies "Mac people" - I was having an online discussion with someone about Tiger (the latest instance of OS-X) and they mentioned that if you Apple-K on the keyboard during boot you see all the "ugly Unix stuff" (the messages from various modules as they start). This obsession with the style and look of things blinds them to the real underlying power. It is how Apple managed to run all the way to 2002 with an OS (v.7 to v.9) that was technically ten years behind Windows (OS9 compared very well with Windows 3 - cooperative multi-tasker and memory management that needs to be disabled for any sensible apps to run!) and twenty years behind Unix. Never mind the quality - feel the anti-aliased founts!
  
• OS-X is Unix - it isn't! Nobody has regarded BSD as a proper Unix since the early nineties! That and the fact that The Open Group (see the story on C/NET) is still litigating, and not for the reasons Apple suggest - they really want all OSes that claim to be Unix to be submitted to the tests that confirm performance & compliance.
  
• Apple break all hardware standards they adopt - RS422, SCSI, PCI, need I say more?
  
• Linus Torvalds (who knows more about OS design than me or you!) says OS-X is a piece of crap.
  
• Apple would turn us all into consummers of their digital "stuff" - iTunes comoditises music in a way I don't like - why engage with an artist when you can cherry pick their greatest hits? Take no risks, buy only songs you've heard on the radio or seen on MTV and we'll turn into a society that only has place for Christina and Britney. Corporate America will have won.

New SGI supercomputer to scale Linux to 1,024 CPUs - wow, that's scalability! The most processors I ever got Windows working with was four!

Has MasterCard gone on a phishing trip, leaving the back door wide open? - Oh dear!

BBC NEWS | Technology | Schoolboys create mobile seeker - Very cool!

How do you terminate video? - a neat little sheet from AVC.

Rude clients are an annoyance!
I have to go and visit customer sites to quote for installation work regularly - some are as nice as pie (and it isn't just down to the coffee!) and some are stand-offish and disinterested (even though you may be subsequently spending tens of thousands of their cash). It costs nothing to be pleasant and those customers who've made me feel welcome always get seen to first subsequently - if I'm passing and they have a problem I pop in that day and fix it for free - but the rude ones....! They can wait!
You get the best out of people when you treat them well. I may be the hired help but don't behave like I'm a servant!

Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine Online | Feature Article: Taming Kerberos - Having sat through a presentation eariler this week on how well OS-X plays with Active Directory I decided my knowledge of Kerberos was somewhat lacking! Get all the info you need here.

Toddlers' plastic swords seized - Europe gone mad!

Live subtitles with DivX movies
Image adjustment (Pan & Scan, aspect ratio correction, overscan compensation)

High quality subtitle display in windowed and full-screen mode in any player (including Windows Media Player).

DivXG400 supports almost every known subtitle format: SubViewer 1.0, 2.0, SubRip, MicroDVD, SAMI, Sub Station Alpha 3.0, 4.0, JACOsub, DVDSubtitle, VobSub
3.0, 4.0, TMPlayer, SMIL-RealText, AqTitle. Additionally, MicroDVD INI-files are accepted as a wrappers to real subtitle files.

Subtitle output to TV in DVDMax mode (of course, all "classical" modes are supported, too)

Near to 24fps clip playback at 25fps