Anything They Can Do, You Can Do Better

Can I still do what they do better than how they do it?

2011-12-20T05:00:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a long time since there's been an update on this blog. Pretty well abandoned it you might say. But wait .... along comes Google+ and a connection between Blogger and Google+, and maybe there's still a chance that there can be some life left in my old blog.

The biggest problem with blogging to me has always been a "disconnect" from what I normally do on the 'InterTubes'. For me, I come to the Internet to see what's new out there. Checking up on my blog on a daily basis is not something I find fun or interesting.

Google+ (as well as twitter and a few other social media applications) on the other hand gives me exactly what I want, a steady stream of interesting information to view and comment on. So now since I can connect my Blooger account to me Google+ account, we shall see if this makes it any easier to keep the blog updated and interesting ... we shall see, I'm a little bit sceptical but let's give it a go.

So, for the fist update in over 3 years let me get caught up on the status of my "projects" from former years.

MythDora & Media MVP configuration: I've stopped using MythDora (all MythTV as a matter of fact,) not so much because it has anything to do with MythTV, but mostly because I have cancelled my cable/satellite accounts, bought a multi input LD TV, and now only use "free" sources [ OTA (Over The Air regular digital TV,) FTA (Free To Air satellite TV, and the Internet.)

My LCD TV has many types of input, so instead of running all my inputs to a MythTV computer and feeding that out to a single input CRT TV, I can put the inputs straight into the TV and switch using the TV remote. I lost the ability to record shows, but the integration between MythTV Schedule Direct TV guide and FTA/OTA is not all that great last time I checked ... not that I really have a need to record the shows I watch on OTA and FTA anyway.

Most of my viewing in from the Internet, which I do by connecting a computer with a DVI video output to my LCD TV, and piping the sound from the computer (Ubuntu 11.11) to my Home Theatre Amp .. I'll try to get around to write up another blog post explaining what apps I use and how to do the configurations.

Internet Access (Teksavvy): I still use this company for my Internet needs, although I switched away from their DSL product and went with their Cable offering. This has mostly to do with the companies Teksavvy buys their services from (Bell for DSL and Rogers cable for cable.) The DSL in my building was always going down, and that and the fact that Bell ripped me off for a service call (and the CRTC being what it is in Canada, forced Teksavvy to charge me $100 for the Bell service call, and there was no way for me to appeal the charge since only Bell customers can appeal (I technically being a Teksavvy customer, not a Bell customer), and Teksavvy is only allowed to appeal in cases of mistakes on invoices ... in other words, Bell can lie all they want about a problem and its resolution, and no one can question their word, even if you have evidence that they lied (which I did) there is no way to appeal the case except maybe writing up a long "legalese" type letter to the CRTC for them to take into consideration come license renewal time (and it's not like Bell is going to lose its license based on a fe customer complaints abut being ripped off.)

So, I simply switched over to Teksavvy cable (which is faster, usually, anyway) which is still a very reasonably priced, no download limit, service.

VoIP Voicenetwork.ca: I still use this service for my VoIP needs, and it still is a very inexpensive solution that provides value for the money you pay. They did raise their prices a bit from their $0.99/mth DID numbers, but even $2.50/mth for a pay per minute ($0.01) phone line, it's pretty cost effective for anyone that doesn't ring up 10 or 20 hours of talk time each month (I put in $25 every 3 months or so and that covers me for 3 DID numbers including talk time.

The only thing to mention here is that I stopped using Astrisk a long time ago in favour of connecting PC software clients directly to the service. Recently I have purchased an Android phone, so now I have one of my DID numbers connecting right to my Android phone .. works very well. I use CSipSimple app, and it integrates with the android phone, so whenever I make a phone call it prompts whether I want to use the Internet or the mobile services, so for local calls I use my unlimited mobile, and for long distance I use the Internet VoIP for cheap long distance calls.

SpeakOut 7/11 cell service: Since switching to an android phone I personally don't use the SpeakOut service. My wife still does though, and it's still IMO the best low cost straight up pay as you go phone service available in my area. They've upgraded so now I can refill online using my CC, so that saves a trip to the local 7/11 when we run low on minutes.

Eyeglasses: After 3 years of using online eyeglass shopping I can honestly say this is the way to go. Just check to make sure you are using a reputable online service, and make sure you get your full prescription from your eye doctor (including full PD numbers - if you have progressive prescriptions you may have a more complicated PD numbers ... usually you can just scan your prescription and attach them to your order and they can take care of figuring out what that means.) Also, check with your insurance provider if you have one to make sure you understand what you need to get in order to be reimbursed.

Future: Assuming this Blogger/Google+ integration works as I expect, I'll see if I can get around to detailing what I have hooked up to my LCD TV, how to configure it, and the apps and websites I use to rid myself of the local cable/satellite providers.

Some other potential projects I want to eventually get around to might be - securing Android phones from nasty carriers and carrierIQ spying (which would probably entail multiple projects, such as setting up VPNs, configuring VoIP services, etc.) And eventually maybe some Android app programming.

Eyegalsses - The big ripoff (and how to save hundreds of dollars)

2008-05-28T08:56:00.011-04:00

Glassyeyes.com Shattering the Eyeglasses Scam
http://www.clearlycontacts.ca/
----------------------------------------------------
The time has come once again where my eye care coverage has reached its two year anniversary, which means my wife and I are in the market for new eye wear.

My work health plan insurance covers 90% of the cost up to $300, including up to $130 for the eye exam itself, leaving $170 to go towards a pair of eyeglasses. (same coverage for my wife.)

So I head out to scout the regular outlets, Lenscrafters, Hakim, and a few "no name" outlets, recalling from previous years that this was going to be an exercise in frustration trying to get a decent pair of specs that only cost me a couple of hundred dollars out of pocket.

The usual "run around" consists of picking out a set of frames for $150 - $200 (unless I want to pick a real ugly $99 set from the bargain bins,) listening to a speech about all the lenses options and coatings, trying to explain to them that I just want the very basics and can't afford all the fancy coatings, and in the end still being handed a bill for over $400.

Of course, insurance will pay $170 of that, but still, after both myself and my wife are finally fitted, I'm stuck with an "out of pocket" bill of over $500 for two sets of less than desirable glasses.

Well, after two weekends of hitting the optical outlets and not seeing anything that looked like a decent bargain, I decided to do a little searching on the Internet, hoping to find that maybe there would be a discount outlet in the area where I could at least buy a set of decent frames for a reasonable price and have the lenses installed by some optician and maybe save $100 or so ... well, I didn't find any local discount outlets, but I did find what seems to be a much better solution.

After a few minutes of googling I came across a site called "Glassyeyes.com Shattering the Eyeglasses Scam". Exactly what the doctor ordered (or more exactly, what the eyeglass doctor hoped you would never find out.)

At Glassy Eyes you'll find reviews, comments, and helpful hints for purchasing eye wear online, as well as links to several online eye glass outlets where you can find decent prescription glasses (even bifocal progressives) for under $100, if you can find frames that suit your sense of style, and there are lots of selection, so everyone should be able to find something they like.

Of course you can go higher than $100 if you wish, and as a quick comparison I took a pair of frames that were obviously better than my current frames on my progressive bifocals (which I paid near $500, frame and lenses, about 4 years ago) and added my prescription (and a pair of clip on sunglasses as my original glasses came with a set) and the cost came to $147 .... I added all the special coatings and made the lenses "high index" (thin lenses) and the price still only came to $235 .

At these prices, if I pick reasonable frames, without the unnecessary coatings and tints, I could probably get two or three sets (a progressive bi-focal set for every day usage, a reading set for computer work, and a single vision "myoptic" set for playing sports and such ) and still come close to staying within the cost that my health plan will cover.

I haven't actually ordered anything as yet, but I do plan on doing so in the next couple of weeks (after I get an eye exam and get me latest prescription,) so look for updates on my on-line optical experiences.

Note: I called my health plan insurance company and they say they will cover the costs as long as the glasses are dispensed by a licensed Optician, I called a few places and most of them do have a licensed Optician so that should not be a problem.

Another issue could be whether the insurance covered purchases done outside of Canada ... I had originally had the idea that as my wife was heading overseas to visit her family this summer, that we would purchase the frames in Canada and get the lenses installed overseas where the prices are quite similar to what I more recently found online. A couple of weeks ago I had contacted my insurance company to see if they would still cover the me if I bought the frames and lenses separately and in different countries, and they said as long as everything was dispensed by a licensed Optician there would be no problem.

Of course, not all health care plans have the same coverage, and yours may have more restrictive rules, so if you have eye care coverage on your health insurance plan you should definitely contact them before ordering your own glasses to make sure you are covered. Even if you''re not covered for on-line eyeglass purchases, it may still be more cost effective to take the full hit of the cheap online purchase rather than paying "retail" at a "brick and mortar" outlet and getting insurance to reimburse some of the money. In my case, for example, I get covered for $300. After a $130 eye exam that leaves me with $170 to cover my glasses. If I buy online I can get the equivalent of my current glasses for about $150. If I go to Lenscrafters they charge me about $400 (closer to $500, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt,) $170 of which insurance will cover. That still leaves me out of pocket at least $230 (of course since my insurance covers the online purchase anyway then there's no question as to which way I will go ... 3 pairs for free, or 1 pair for $230 ... hummm, what a hard choice!!)

For those looking to stay within Canada for their ordering you can try http://www.clearlycontacts.ca/ They also have a licensed Optician and do contact lenses as well.

Update Oct 8th, 2008:

So eventually I got around to ordering a pair of glasses for myself (progressives) and the wife (2 pair; a single vision for near sightedness, and a pair of reading glasses.)

I has previously gone to the optometrist to get an updated prescription, which took about $90 from my bi-annual $300 eye care insurance limit. The wife already had her's done recently over seas for maybe $10 cdn, so she had her full $300 to use. My glasses cost around the full $210 I had left, and the wife's 2 pairs cost about $210 or so, so she still can get another pair of cheap glasses if she wants.

We ended up using http://selectspecs.com as they had the styles we were looking for (ok, the styles the wife was looking for ... what do I know about "style"?)

The glasses arrived in about 3 weeks, which is the time frame they originally gave me, and kept me up to date on the status with several emails through out the process.

So far so good. We've been wearing these new specs for about 2 weeks now with no problems.

Mythdora - Setting up a USB IR-Blaster

2008-03-19T12:21:00.017-04:00

Finally got around to ordering an IR-Blaster to use with my Mythdora installation.

The specific one I purchased can be found at www.usbuirt.com. I actually ordered it on-line from NCIX (Vancouver Canada source) on Monday afternoon, and I had it in my hands (Toronto) on Wednesday.

What I wanted to do was to use the IR-Blaster to give me the ability to first; have the Mythtv front-end be controlled by one of my many remote controls, instead of my wireless keyboard; and then to also change the channels on my STB as controlled from MythTV.

So, here's what I had to work with: My MythTV box, the USB IR-Blaster, My STB, the remote for my STB, and for now the remote for my MediaMVP box.

First thing I did was read, read, and read some more, and got myself totally confused ... that is until I read somewhere that the USB-UIRT was directly supported bu lirc 8.2 ... brillaint, because that's exactly what Mythdora comes with.

So I take the first big step; I plug the USB IR-Blaster into the USB port of my MythDora box ... suddenly I see some new device files in my /dev directly, the most important one being /dev/ttyUSB0 which it turns out is the recognized USB IR-Blaster.

Next, as a test I run the "irrecord" command ... first time through it doesn't work, but luckily I make a type on the driver argument, and it obligingly responds with a list of valid drivers, one of them being the "usb_uirt_raw"driver (I was trying to use some other driver, but types it in wrong, which was lucky, as had I typde it in correctly it just would have failed and I would have probably spent hurs more trying to google the reasons and corrections.)

Anyway, after I realize my mistake I correct it and type:

irrecord -H usb_uirt_raw -d /dev/ttyUSB0 myremote.conf

This brings up some information and a few prompts, and asks me to start hitting keys on my remote, which the program starts to recognize. so I know that I am getting somewhere with this little project.

So, let's step back a little bit here now that I've got the basics up and running, and do a quick overview of the steps that are going to be needed in order to accomplish what I want to do.

Step1: Get MythDora to recognize the USB IR-Blaster hardware.

Step 2: Create an lirc configuration file of the remote I want to use so the lirc system can both recognize and simulate these devices.

Step 3: Merge these files into one file and place it in the /etc/lircd.conf file.

Step 4: Configure the lircd to start properly and to start on a reboot.

Step 5: Configure MythTV to recognize the output from the lirc system

Step 6: Configure MythTV to send the proper IR codes out to the IR-Blaster to simulate the STB's remote control.

So, let's put some detail on some of those steps.

Step 1: This step is actually very simple, as mentioned above. Ignore everything you read about setting up other kinds of IR Blasters on other version of lirc, simply make sure you have lirc 8.2 and plug the IR Blaster into your USB port (note: use "rpm -qa |grep lirc" to determine if you have lirc 8.2 ... and if you don't I would assume a command such as "yum install lirc" would quickly fix this problem ... but, as I stated already, MythDora should already come with this software.)

Step 2: This is where the "irrecord" command comes in. You run this command with the proper parameters, and it prompts you to start hitting keys on the remote, gives these keys some names, and it automatically builds the lirc configuration file for you.

For example, to create the lircd configuration file for my Hauppauge MediaMVP remote control I used the following command:

"irrecord -H usb_uirt_raw -d /dev/ttyUSB0 hauppauge"

The program walked me through the process where I hit all the keys on my remote, gave them some names, and it did all the work in creating the following file:

# Please make this file available to others
# by sending it to
#
# this config file was automatically generated
# using lirc-0.8.2-CVS(usb_uirt_raw) on Thu Mar 20 15:55:56 2008
#
# contributed by
#
# brand: hauppauge
# model no. of remote control:
# devices being controlled by this remote:
#

begin remote

name hauppauge
bits 13
flags RC5|CONST_LENGTH
eps 30
aeps 100

one 917 775
zero 917 775
plead 961
gap 109396
min_repeat 1
toggle_bit_mask 0x800

begin codes
1 0x1781
2 0x1782
3 0x1783
4 0x1784
5 0x1785
6 0x1786
7 0x1787
8 0x1788
9 0x1789
0 0x1780
Text 0x178A
Sub/CC 0x178E
Red 0x178B
Green 0x17AE
Yellow 0x17B8
Blue 0x17A9
Skip- 0x17A4
Pause 0x17B0
Skip+ 0x179E
Rewind 0x17B2
Play 0x17B5
Forward 0x17B4
Record 0x17B7
Pause 0x17B6
Vol- 0x1791
Vol+ 0x1790
Mute 0x178F
Previous 0x1792
CH- 0x17A1
Ch+ 0x17A0
Exit 0x179F
Down 0x1795
Menu 0x178D
Left 0x1796
Right 0x1797
Up 0x1794
Guide 0x179B
Radio 0x178C
TV 0x179C
Videos 0x1798
Music 0x1799
Pictures 0x179A
Power 0x17BD
OK 0x17A5
Go 0x17BB
end codes

end remote

Step 3: I also did the same thing with my STB's remote control, merged the two files ("cat file1 >> file2") and copied that merged file to /etc/lircd.conf.

I then had a file that allows the lirc system to both recognize and simulate both of those remote controls.

Note: I have several older remotes, especially a couple of RCA universal remotes, but neither of these remotes were properly recognized by the irrecord program ... so be warned, not all remotes are created euqally, so YMMV.

Step 4: Next we want to set up the licrd program to start properly, and to start up automatically on reboot.

First we need to edit the /etc/sysconfig/licrd file to contain the line:

LIRCD_OPTIONS="--driver=usb_uirt_raw --device=/dev/ttyUSB0"

This will you to start the lircd deamon using the command:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/lircd start

In order to make sure the lircd program starts up after a system reboot you can enter the following command:

chkconfig lircd on

Step 5: Mythtv doesn't actually do the recognizing of the remote control codes ... lircd does that and then looks up what to do with these codes in your /home/mythtv/.mythtv/lircrc file (also "soft linked" to /home/mythtv/.lircrc, so if you edit one of them you actually edit both.)

The lircrc file format (along with other useful information about the lirc system) can be found here.

To understand better what's goin gon here, let's step through a basic key press from my MediaMVP remote control and trace what happens from the actual key press to the action on the screen within MythTV.

OK, so let's say I press the "menu" button on my MediaMVP remote.

The IR-Blaster receives the IR signal "0x178D" and passes it on to the lircd program.

The lircd program checks in the /etc/litcd.conf file and finds the "0x178D" code (see bolded code above) in the hauppauge section of the file, which tells it that this code corresponds to the "menu" button of the hauppauge remote control.

So, now the lircd knows that the "menu" button on the hauppauge remote was pressed .. now what does it do whit it?

First thing the lircd does is to check what program has the "focus" of the system ... in this case since we are supposedly running MythTV, the lircd program finds that "mythtv" has the focus.

Lircd now looks in the /home/mythtv/.mythtv/lircrc file.

It looks through all the file for any entry that refers to the "hauppauge" remote, for a program called "mythtv", and a reference to a "menu" button .

In doing so it finds something like this:

begin
remote=hauppauge
prog = mythtv
button = Menu
repeat = 3
config = M
end

This tells the lircd that as the "mythtv" program has focus, and the "Menu" button was pressed, then send the key-press "M" to the mythtv program.

A key-press of "M", assuming you're watching live TV, will bring up the live tv menu.

The only hard part about this whole process is that you will have to go through each entry in the /home/mythtv/.mythtv/lircrc file and make sure the "button" entry matches what you have listed in the /etc/lircd file (for both "remote" and "button" at least ... also "repeat" and "delay" might need to be adjusted for your particular system needs.)

Step 6: So now we have MythTV recognizing the signals from your remote control, now we need to have Mythtv send out the proper remote codes when it wants to change the channel, so that the STB thinks the codes are coming from it's own remote control.

Again, let's step through a sample case. Let's say you are watching a show on channel 100 and want to change to channel 200 ... so you enter "2-0-0" and hit "ok" on the remote.

Mythtv recognizes these remote control signals just as it would in Step 5 above ... but this time, since it is a string of numbers and an "ok", it interprets this as a request to change the channel (and rightfully so.)

When MythTV recognizes a channel change request it can do one of two things; If you have an internal cable or satellite card installed, it sends that request directly to the card and lets the card handle the channel change process. If you are using an external Set Top Box (STB) then you need to configure MythTV to use an "external channel change command".

You config this in the MythTV setup program under "Input connections".

Run "MythTV Setup", go to the "Input connections" section and select the appropriate connection ... in my case it's the "[MPEG : /dev/video0 ] (Composite 1)" connection as I have my composite output from my STB connected to the composite input of my hauppauge PVR-150 card.

In this Connection I have entered "/usr/local/bin/change_chan.sh" into the filed called "External channel change commands:".

This tells MythTV that when ever a channel change is requested (by entering "###ok" on your remote, or via an automated request from the recording system) to take all the numbers and send them as parameters to a program called change_chan.sh in the /etc/local/bin directory.

So, since as we stated abve we are changing from channel 100 to channel 200 by entering "200ok" on the remote, MythTV automatically runs the Linux command:

"/usr/local/bin/change_chan.sh 200"

Next let's have a look at the /usr/local/bin/change_chan.sh shell script:

#!/bin/sh
REMOTE_NAME=STB-REMOTE
for digit in $(echo $1 | sed -e 's/./& /g'); do
irsend SEND_ONCE $REMOTE_NAME $digit
sleep 0.2 # note, you may have to tweak the interdigit delay up a bit
done
irsend SEND_ONCE $REMOTE_NAME OK

The most important parts of the script are the "irsend" commands. This is the lirc command that tells the ir blaster to send an ir signal out to some other device.

You'll need to understand a little bit of shell scripting to figure out the details of this script, but essentially it takes the channel number passed to it by Mythtv, let's say 200, and takes each individual digit of that number, looks up the proper remote code in the /etc/lircd.conf file, and sends it individually out the ir port of the ir blaster ... repeats for each digit, and then finally sends an "OK" ir signal for that remote.

You will have to modify this script to suit your own remote and the signals it requires:

Change REMOTE_NAME=STB-REMOTE to REMOTE_NAME=

You will find your remote name in the /etc/lircd.conf file in the "name" section of the remote that controls your STB.

You may also have to change the "irsend SEND_ONCE $REMOTE_NAME OK"
line as well to change "OK" to whatever you called the button that your remote uses to signal that you've stopped entering digits and to take whatever number you've entered as the complete channel number you are attempting to change to.

And that should be it .... you may need to restart MythTV, or even reboot your system (I'd recommend a complete reboot to make sure everything starts as it should.

My Mythtv now is controlled by my old MediaMVP remote control, and when I enter a channel number (or Mythtv automatically tries to change channels; for a recording for example) it sends the channel number to the lirc system which emulates the IR Remote of my set top box.

My next little project is to modify the /usr/local/bin/change_chan.sh to look for special numbers, which I will then cause to run other scripts to kick off and send other ir codes that will automatically configure all my A/V equipment ... for example let's say I enter the channel number "99966" (9-9-9-o-n) that could be recognized by the change_chan.sh script, which would then run another script that uses irsend to send ir codes to the TV, HTS, & STB to turn them all on and set them to the proper volumn levels, inputs and outputs. 999644 (9-9-9-o-f-f) could trigger a scrpt that turns everything off.

First though I need to figure out how to get the proper licrd.conf file for my RCA remote that came with y old HTS, as while it is an RCA universal remote, it doesn't seem to be like any official RCA universal remote.

For those attempting this project, I would first look in http://lirc.sourceforge.net/remotes/ to see if your remote already has an lircd.conf file ... if not, then you're going to have to use the lirc tools such as irrecord, mode2, and such to try and build your own ... good luck.

VoIP & ISP update

2007-11-28T18:03:00.000-05:00

I made a couple of changes to my configuration, one for practical purposes, and the other I was more or less forced to make.

The first change was that instead of using Asterisk to handle my SIP phone, I connected the SIP phone directly to the Voicenetwork.ca service. I did this as there seemed to be some jitter and "sputtering" going through Asterisk, probably because I am trying to do too much on that one Linux system (Mythtv, torrents, DVD burning, file sharing, video server, dynamic DHCP client, and so on.) The good news is that this so far is working great. The sound quality is very good, even when my wife called her sister over in Asia (for 2 cents per minute) ... and this is with a $12 cdn USB phone connected to a slow computer running X-Lite softphone.

The other change is with my ISP.

Teksavvy have changed pricing for some of their high-speed connection services. I was using "unlimited" for $29 /mth, but they are going to up the price for that service by $10 starting next year. Their Premium service, which runs at the same speed, but uses improved routing and better "ping times", also goes for $29/mth, and still does. I went with unlimted originally as the premium package was limited to 100GB download per month. To make up for the raise in pricing for unlimited, they bumped the premium package up to a 200GB / mth download limit, with prepaid upgrades of $10 per 100GB if needed. Since I usually use just over the 100GM per month in most cases, the 200GB should do me just fine.

So all in all, things are looking good ... I may put together another PC I have sitting in my closet unused to run as a dedicated Asterisk server to see if that works without degrading sound quality and stability, but that's for later on.

Bell Mobility - WARNING

2007-11-19T09:00:00.000-05:00

I have a teenage daughter, and naturally she wants to be able to chat with her friends on a "hip" cell phone. She readily admits that real functionality has little to do with what she wants. She already has an 30GB video iPod, a 6 or 7 Mega pixel pocket sized digital camera and a functional cell phone, but it's not cool enough to be used with her friends around ... so off we go this weekend to find her a Cherry LG Chocolate 800.

Well, when she approached me with the request, she had already done some research and showed me the Bell Mobility plans that included this phone ... I should have done my own research, but she came to see me late in the week, and I was busy trying to figure out what to get for my wife's birthday this weekend, so I gave it a quick going over and said we'd drop in and pick it up as we were doing our regular weekend chores.

So I drop into the Bell store in the Eaton Centre, go through the nonsense that Bell puts you through in order to obtain the privilege of paying them too much for their crap, and about 45 minutes later my daughter had her Cherry LG.

So I get home, and my daughter disappears into her bedroom to play with her phone. A few hours later she come out and asks if I can help her with her phone as she can't seem to find any easy way to get media on and off the phone.

I start reading the manual and going on line to see what can be done (there is a USB cable that comes with the phone, and it supports bluetooth, but there is no CD that comes with the Bell Mobility version of this phone, so there is nothing obvious as to how to manage your phone from your computer.

First I try bluetooth from my laptop ... I figure out how to do this, so I at least have a way to add music to the phone, and get the pictures and video off if it as well, without having to pay Bell for storage and transfer surcharges.

Next, I try to figure out the ringtones. There are a few built in ringtones, but no obvious way to use your own ringtones. Supposedly the only way to get ringtones on a Bell Mobility phone is to pay Bell for their rigntones and download them paying data rates for the download as well.

Now, that's not acceptable in my opinion ... I buy a phone, it is my phone, and there is no way the person who sold me the phone should be allowed to prevent me from using that phone to its full capacity. Bell Mobility also cripples the phones by hard coding the network information into them, ie, no sim cards on Bell Mobility phone, if you are dissatisfied with Bell Mobility service and cancel your account, your cell phone is pretty well useless. You either resell it to someone who has a Bell Mobility account, or throw it in the garbage.

Anyway, back to the ringtones. I was able to find some software that allowed me to look at the file system of the phone, and with a little experimenting I was able to get an mp3 file into the "Downloads" folder of the phone, which then allowed me to select that file as a ringtone (the actual ringtone directory on a Bell Mobility phone has been modified to be located in the phones firmware, so you can't add ringtones the easy way, simply adding MP3 files to the ringtone folder ), but when I have this file selected as a ringtone, the phone doesn't actually "ring" while it is selected (the phone does everything it should when a call comes in, it lights up, shows the number, etc, it just doesn't make any sounds.)

It was getting late, so I gave up for the night, but I will get back to it tonight or tomorrow night, and see if I can fix this problem (I'm assuming that it's the format of the MP3 file that is unsuitable for use as a ringtone, or it may be that I need to edit some of the other files in the Download folder to "describe" the file for the phone. Worst case I believe I can download a normal ringtone or two and just replace the MP3 files that were downloaded with my own (the displayed information will probably be wrong, but the MP3's should work.)

I have purposely left any information on the tools I used so far out of this post as I don't want people wasting their time on something that doesn't work (yet.) After I finish playing around with this I will post all the information (successful or not) so others can either make use of my work, or in the case of failure on my part, maybe pick up where I left off and possibly find a solution.

Anyway, Bell Mobility ... you really suck. It's my damn phone and who the hell do you think you are breaking it and then charging me a premium for doing so? This will certainly be the last Bell Mobility phone I will ever own, and I would advise anyone who is the least bit interested in using their phones for the purposes they were designed to be used for, to avoid Bell Mobility as well.

Speak-out 7-11 pay-as-you-go

2007-11-19T08:27:00.000-05:00

I believe I've mentioned this before, but if not, I was searching for a cheaper cell phone plan when I happened upon The Unofficial 7-Eleven Speak Out Wireless Canada Consumer Page. It spoke of a deal from 7-11 where for $100 you get $100 of air-time ($0.20 per minute local) plus a new phone (which also included 5 minutes air time.) So for $100, you get a free phone and $105 of air time. And, the air time has a 365 day expiry "limit".

Since I don't spend a lot of time on the phone, nor does my wife, and we are paying $100 /mth ($1200 a year) for two cells phone, this $100 deal, even if I need to add an additional $200 or $400 of air time over the year (doubtful) I still come out ahead.

So my first attempt to get this deal (about a month ago) failed, as all the phones were sold out, and the deal was not on any more. The lady behind the counter did tell me that they were going to bring back the deal and the phone shipment was due in on Nov 15th.

So this weekend I head down to the local 7-11 and sure enough, the deal was on and phones were available. $228 later ($100 each for the two phones, plus taxes) and away I go with two active working phones each with 525 minutes of airtime (well, not really as there is about a $0.99 per month 911 charge, so you lose 3 minutes a month, but I can live with that.)

I should mention, the lady that sold me the phone was very friendly and seemed to be quite knowledgeable as I double checked on some information such as sim card capability with Rogers and phone number portability and she assured me both should be no problem.

So I get home, pop open my phone, swap out the sim cards, put the phone back together, power it up, and all phones worked as they should. My Rogers cell phones were now on the Speakout network and my new speakout phones were running on the Rogers network (no surprise here as Speakout uses the Rogers network anyway, but you never know.)

Next steps:

1) Get my Rogers phone numbers ported over to my Speakout account. Called Speakout customer service this morning and checked to make sure my numbers were portable ... they are ... and to check all the information they would need from me in order for them to be able to make the change. They need the account number, any password associated with the account, and the INEI/ESN number of the phone (usually found inside the phone under the battery) Since I called from work, and I didn't have all the phones with me I will gather the information tonight and call them again.

2) Cancel my Rogers account. I need to leave this account active until the numbers are ported over (2 or 3 business days from request date.) I suspect that I will have to pay a $200 early termination penalty, but that's ok, I'll still save a bundle this year.

Stay tuned.

openVPN - Homing from work.

2007-10-12T14:41:00.000-04:00

The company I work for has graciously set up a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to allow me to be able to work for them at all hours of the day or night, so I figured, heck, why not return the favour and set up my own VPN so I could be "home" at all hours of the work day?

Besides, this would make connecting to the Asterisk server a lot easier as a VPN hides all the NAT issues that so plague the SIP VoIP standard.

So here is the process I used to get my VPN working.

First a summary of what I did:

1) Install openvpn on my MythDora box
2) Generate the necessary certificate files for server and clients
3) Configure the openvpn server on the MythDora box
4) Copy over the client certificates to my laptop
6) Download the Openvpn compatible client and installed it on my laptop
7) Configure the Openvpn client
8) Configure your home router
8) Test the connection
9) Configure openvpn server to start on reboot.

Install openvpn on my MythDora box:

From my home Linux box (same one I used for both MythTV and Asterisk) I open a terminal session and type:

#yum install openvpn

This installs the openvpn software and creates these two directories:

For the tools needed to create certificates: /usr/share/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0/
Config examples: /usr/share/doc/openvpn-2.1

Generate the necessary certificate files for server and clients:

Now the "hard part" (Actually everything went pretty smooth.) You can find the basic quick start instructions here, but these instructions take your through a lot of steps that your don't need to go through, such as installing the software in some other manner than by using the "yum" command above. The configuration and certificate creation information still applies, but rather than just send you over to read some long document and try to figure out what to ignore and what is important on your own, here is what I did (keep in mind, my Linux distribution is MythDora 4.0, different distributions may not work the same way.)

In the /usr/share/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0/ directory you need to initialize your "certificate authority", you do this by running the following (note, you can edit the vars file to change the "export KEY_SIZE=1024" entry to "export KEY_SIZE=2048" if you feel you need the extra security ... I did, as I am connecting from work, I don't want to take any unnecessary chances) :

# . ./vars
# ./clean-all
# ./build-ca

When you run the ./build-ca program, you will be promoted for information, it's really not that important what you respond with, but it should make some sense Ex: in my case:

Country Name (2 letter code) [KG]: CA
State or Province Name (full name) [NA]: Ontario
Locality Name (eg, city) [BISHKEK]: Toronto
Organization Name (eg, company) [OpenVPN-TEST]: 
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []: 
Common Name (eg, your name or your server's hostname) []:MythTV
Email Address [me@myhost.mydomain]

Next you need to create the "server certificates", you do this by running the following command:

./build-key-server server

When prompted for the "Common Name" enter the word "server". The following two promts that require input, I answered "y".

Now, you will need to create the "client certificates", note that you will need to run this process as many times as the number of machines that you will be connecting to your VPN. In my case I only have one laptop that I want connected, so I only needed to run this "client certificate creation" process one time (I ran it twice though to create a second set of certificates just in case I wanted to use them on another system, maybe give a set to my brother so he could VPN into my network and have his own extension off my Asterisk later on?) Each time you run this process, use a unique "Common Name". In my case I just used "client1" and "client2". Again, the last two prompts of each client certificate build process I responded "Y".

./build-key client1
./build-key client2

Next we create our " Diffie Hellman parameters" by running the following:

./build-dh

This will take several minutes so be patient.

Configure the openvpn server on the MythDora box:

So, now we can look in the /usr/share/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0/keys directory and see a bunch of files. These are your certificates and related files. To make them easier to find in the future I created a directory /etc/openvpn and copied the /usr/share/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0/keys to there:

# mkdir /etc/openvpn
# cp /usr/share/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0/keys /etc/openvpn/.

Now we need to create the configuration files for the server and client. The recommended procedure is to copy the example files over from the examples directory mentioned above and modify them for your purposes, but I will provide you with the configuration I used and highlight the parts that you may want to change for your own configuration. Keep in my that in my configuration I have an internal network of 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 and the VPN will create a virtual adapter on my Linux server with the subnet 10.8.0.0/255.255.255.0 to which the VPN clients will be part of when they connect.

The clients, when they run the VPN client software will connect to my MythDora server as 10.8.0.x ("x" being some number between 2 & 254) and see the MythDora server as 10.8.0.1

First the server configuration file (/etc/openvpn/server.conf):

# Which TCP/UDP port should OpenVPN listen on?
# If you want to run multiple OpenVPN instances
# on the same machine, use a different port
# number for each one. You will need to
# open up this port on your firewall.
port 1194

# TCP or UDP server? I used TCP as I have to
# traverse two NAT firewalls and UDP sucks at
# that depending upon the routers and firewalls
# being used.
proto tcp
;proto udp

# Read the config file or documentation to figure this one out
# but I would suggest you just leave it as is.
dev tun

# These are your server certificates.
# If you put them somewhere else, change the localtion
ca /etc/openvpn/keys/ca.crt
cert /etc/openvpn/keys/server.crt
key /etc/openvpn/keys/server.key
# server.key is your private certificate, keep it private (secret.)

# 2048 bit keys. If different location, then update path.
dh /etc/openvpn/keys/dh2048.pem

# Configure server mode and supply a VPN subnet
# for OpenVPN to draw client addresses from.
# The server will take 10.8.0.1 for itself,
# the rest will be made available to clients.
# Each client will be able to reach the server
# on 10.8.0.1. Comment this line out if you are
# ethernet bridging. See the man page for more info.
server 10.8.0.0 255.255.255.0

# Maintain a record of client <-> virtual IP address
# associations in this file. If OpenVPN goes down or
# is restarted, reconnecting clients can be assigned
# the same virtual IP address from the pool that was
# previously assigned.
ifconfig-pool-persist ipp.txt

# Push routes to the client to allow it
# to reach other private subnets behind
# the server. Remember that these
# private subnets will also need
# to know to route the OpenVPN client
# address pool (10.8.0.0/255.255.255.0)
# back to the OpenVPN server.
push "route 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0"
# In my case I wanted any client connecting to the VPN
# to know to go through the VPN to get to the
# 192.168.1.0 network.
# You may have different requirements
# or a different network config.

# The keepalive directive causes ping-like
# messages to be sent back and forth over
# the link so that each side knows when
# the other side has gone down.
# Ping every 10 seconds, assume that remote
# peer is down if no ping received during
# a 120 second time period.
keepalive 10 120

# Enable compression on the VPN link.
# If you enable it here, you must also
# enable it in the client config file.
comp-lzo

# It's a good idea to reduce the OpenVPN
# daemon's privileges after initialization.
#
# You can uncomment this out on
# non-Windows systems.
user nobody
group nobody

# Output a short status file showing
# current connections, truncated
# and rewritten every minute.
status openvpn-status.log

# By default, log messages will go to the syslog (or
# on Windows, if running as a service, they will go to
# the "\Program Files\OpenVPN\log" directory).
# Use log or log-append to override this default.
# "log" will truncate the log file on OpenVPN startup,
# while "log-append" will append to it. Use one
# or the other (but not both).
log openvpn.log
log-append openvpn.log

# Set the appropriate level of log
# file verbosity.
#
# 0 is silent, except for fatal errors
# 4 is reasonable for general usage
# 5 and 6 can help to debug connection problems
# 9 is extremely verbose
verb 3

# Silence repeating messages. At most 20
# sequential messages of the same message
# category will be output to the log.
mute 20

I've left out a bunch of other parameters that could be used, so have a look through the various example config files, or read the documentation to see what else can be configured.

Copy over the client certificates to my laptop:

OK, next we need to copy over the following files to your client machine:

ca.crt
client1.crt
client1.key

Note: this is for "client1", if it were for "client2" you'd copy over the "client2" files and the common "ca.crt" file.

The way you do the copy is not important, except that the more secure method you use the better ... moving the files by floppy and destroying the floppy after you're finished is pretty safe ... sending the files by email or on a public BBS is a pretty damn poor way to go about it ... I used sftp which is very safe, and convenient if you have a sftp client such as filezilla.

Download the Openvpn compatible client and installed it on my laptop:

You can use which ever openvpn compatible client you wish, I used this one (the OpenVPN GUI for Windows) so naturally, the instructions below are for the client I used.

This is a standard windows install, simply download the client installer and run it.

Configure the Openvpn client:

First, you need to move the client certificates you copied over to your client machine into the "C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config" directory.

Next you need to edit the "C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config\client.ovpn" file and make the following edits:

Make sure "dev tun" is uncommented and "dev tap" is commented out

Uncomment "proto tcp" and comment "proto udp".

edit "remote my-server-2 1194" to change "my-server-2" to your hostname (if you have a registered domain name for your home network and a static address, then use that, if not I suggest you open a free dynamic DNS account, set up a free domain name under one of their main domains and set up your router to update their records, or download and run one of their clients ... I'll create a separate posting later to explain how to do this in more detail later.

Make sure the proper certificates are being specified, and that they are in the "C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config" directory, the default client.ovpn file has these as the defaults and should be left as such unless you moved the certificates somewhere else or used a different Common Name than "client1".:
ca ca.crt
cert client1.crt
key client1.key

Configure your home router:

You will have to forward tcp port 1194 to your MythDora box. For testing purposes you should make the MythDora box the "DMZ host", then once you confirm everything works, turn off the "DMZ Host" access and just forward the single 1194 TCP port.

Each router is different in how you make this configuration, but generally speaking the options you are looking for are called "DMZ" and "Port Forwarding".

Test the connection:

To fully test the connection you will need to go to the office and do the final test from there. Before I did this I decided to configure my router to make my MythDora machine the "DMZ" host, meaning it was basically sitting out on the Internet and could be accessed using the external real IP address. I would recommend that you shut down all the other services like MythTV, apache, webmin, vncserver, smb, tftp, cvs, nfs, mysqld, and any other service that a hacker might use to gain easy access to the system. I could then access my server via ssh mythtv@ and make any necessary configuration changes in case the VPN failed.

Once at the office I ssh (I use putty as my ssh client) to my MythDora server, log in and "su" to root, and start up a temporary openvpn session (I actually open two connections to my MythDora box so I can look at the logs if necessary.)

To start the openvpn session type:

/usr/sbin/openvpn /etc/openvpn/server.conf

The session may seem to hang, but it is actually doing somthing.

Now you can run the Windows openvpn client and see if it will connect to your server. If not, in the /etc/openvpn directory you will find a couple log files, openvpn.log being the most useful one for troubleshooting. You can also right click on the Windows openvpn client icon in the system tray and select "View Log" to examine what's going on from the client side.

You can test the actual connection by opening a new ssh session on your laptop and trying to ssh to the openvpn virtual adapter address, 10.8.0.1 by default. If you can get a log in prompt and actually log in using that address, then everything else should work fine.

Configure openvpn server to start on reboot:

As root run the command:

# chkconfig openvpn on

---------------------------------------------

Note 1: in order to use this VPN it is probably best to have a domain name to use, especially if you are like most home users and have an external IP address that can change at any time.

To this end I used the Dynamic DNS servers from www.dyndns.org, which is free and handles the problem of having a "dynamic IP address". I will create a new post detailing the registration, installation and configuration of this service soon.

Note 2: At the moment my SIP client software on my laptop running over the VPN can make and accept telephone calls (SIP,) but for some reason the actual voice stream (rtp) is not passed on ... I haven't had a chance to investigate this, but I recall reading that this is a common problem with a relatively simple fix as I recall, but I haven't have an opportunity to research the problem ... when I find the fix for this problem I will post it.

Configuring Asterisk with Voice Network Inc VoIP / SIP service

2007-10-10T22:28:00.000-04:00

After installing Asterisk and subscribing to a VoIP DID and PSTN Gateway service the next step was to configure the Asterisk server to actually do some meaningful work.

So here was my basic plan: I would set up some simple 'softphone' software on the family's PCs, give them each an extension and mail box on the Asterisk, then connect the Asterisk to the 'Voice Network Inc' VoIP services.

Then I would configure the Asterisk to: allow calling between extensions (so I can take my laptop to work and call my wife's or daughter's extension just as though I was at home;) allow incoming calls to be answered by Asterisk which then prompts for the caller to enter an extension; allow any of the extensions to make outgoing calls over the PSTN Gateway.

Note: Since one must already know the extension to enter when calling, the first stage of this project will only be used for friends and family whom I provide the extension numbers to use. I will not have a default as yet, as there is no charge for incoming calls, so if telemarketers get frustrated trying to get a valid extension, and can't "zero out" to an operator, big deal ... they can just hang up. Maybe later on, if and when I'm ready to make it a more general access system I'll build a better menu system that allows others to access a "general extension" to ring an extension, or leave a voice mail, but for now that isn't a priority.

The first step was to get a 'softphone' to use for initial testing (later on if this works I can buy some hardware based IP phones, but for now free software based phones will do for what I need.) The most popular VoIP softphone seem to be the X-Lite softphone from CounterPath. You can download a version of X-Lite for Linux, Mac, or Windows.

So with those requirements in mind, here are the related configuration files (note, an Asterisk install usually comes with some example configuration files, the ones I modified I did so by renaming the long and detailed sample files and building my own from scratch. I'll get around to examining the samples as they probably have some good information in them for some of the more advanced features, but that's for later.)

I will use "numbers" to reference comments to prevent as many unnecessary and confusing line wraps as possible.

extensions.conf:

[globals] ;Note 1
OUTBOUNDTRUNK=SIP/voicenetwork_peer
USER1=SIP/user1
USER2=SIP/user2

; VOICE NETWORKS START
; Edit your EXTENSIONS.CONF and place the following information in it
;
[voicenetwork-incoming] ;Note 2
exten => [Assigned DID],1,Goto(s,1) ;2a
exten => s,1,Answer() ;2b
exten => s,2,Wait(1) ;2c
exten => s,3,Background(vm-extension) ;2d
exten => s,4,WaitExten(15) ;2e
exten => i,1,Playback(pbx-invalid) ;2f
exten => i,2,Goto(voicenetwork-incoming,s,1) ;2g
exten => t,1,Playback(vm-goodbye) ;2h
exten => t,2,Hangup() ;2i
exten => 101,1,Dial(${USER1},10) ;2j
exten => 101,2,VoiceMail(u101@default) ;2k
exten => 101,3,Hangup() ;2l
exten => 101,102,VoiceMail(b101@default) ;2m
exten => 101,103,Hangup() ;2n
exten => 102,1,Dial(SIP/user2,10) ;2p
exten => 102,2,VoiceMail(u102@default) ;2q
exten => 102,3,Hangup() ;2r
exten => 102,102,VoiceMail(b102@default) ;2s
exten => 102,103,Hangup() ;2t
exten => 500,1,VoiceMailMain() ;2u

; To use VoiceNetwork.ca to termination your calls
; add the following line to your extensions.conf file
;
[outbound-local] ; Note 3
exten => _9NXXXXXXXXX,1,Dial(SIP/voicenetwork_peer/${EXTEN:1})
exten => _9NXXXXXXXXX,2,Congestion()
exten => _9NXXXXXXXXX,102,Congestion()

[outbound-long-distance] ; Note 4
exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,1,Dial(SIP/voicenetwork_peer/${EXTEN:1})
exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,2,Congestion()
exten => _91NXXNXXXXXX,102,Congestion()
exten => _9011.,1,Dial(SIP/voicenetwork_peer/${EXTEN:1})
exten => _9011.,2,Congestion()
exten => _9011.,102,Congestion()

;
; VOICE NETWORKS END

[internal] ; Note 5
include => outbound-local
include => outbound-long-distance
exten => 101,hint,SIP/user1
exten => 101,1,Dial(SIP/user1,10)
exten => 101,2,VoiceMail(u101@default)
exten => 101,3,Hangup()
exten => 101,102,VoiceMail(b101@default)
exten => 101,103,Hangup()
exten => 102,hint,SIP/user2
exten => 102,1,Dial(SIP/user2,10)
exten => 102,2,VoiceMail(u102@default)
exten => 102,3,Hangup()
exten => 102,102,VoiceMail(b102@default)
exten => 102,103,Hangup()
exten => 500,1,VoiceMailMain()
exten => 611,1,Echo()

; Note 6
[asterisk_guitools]
exten = executecommand,1,System(${command})
exten = executecommand,n,Hangup()
exten = record_vmenu,1,Answer
exten = record_vmenu,n,Playback(vm-intro)
exten = record_vmenu,n,Record(${var1})
exten = record_vmenu,n,Playback(vm-saved)
exten = record_vmenu,n,Playback(vm-goodbye)
exten = record_vmenu,n,Hangup
exten = play_file,1,Answer
exten = play_file,n,Playback(${var1})
exten = play_file,n,Hangup
hasbeensetup = Y

[numberplan-custom-1]
plancomment = DialPlan1
include = default
include = parkedcalls
include = parkedcalls

[timebasedrules]

Note 1: This is where you put global Variables. Global variables can save on typing and make reading the information more "human friendly". In this case I really only use one of these variables (USER1) later in the config file just to show how they work (see "2j".)

Note 2: This is the context to define what users in the voicenetwork-incoming context can do. Here's a detailed explanation:

2a: exten => [Assigned DID],1,Goto(s,1) Replace "[Assigned DID]" with the phone number you selected when you purchased a DID from Voice Network Inc. This causes a call coming in on that "etension" to be transfered to the "s" extension at priority "1". Some VoIP SIP providers pass the phone number you purchased, some pass a special ID number. What I did in order to determine what was being sent was to set up a temporary voicenetwork-incoming context that had the following:

exten => _X.,1,Answer
exten => _X.,2,Wait(1)
exten => _X.,3,SayDigits(${EXTEN})
exten => _X.,4,Wait(1)
exten => _X.,6,Hangup

Which answers anything that comes in, speaks out the number it answered on, then hangs up. The Number it speaks is the number you need to use as the [Assigned DID]

2b: exten => s,1,Answer() Answers the call

2c: exten => s,2,Wait(1) Pause for a second

2d: exten => s,3,Background(vm-extension) Ask use to enter an extension

2e: exten => s,4,WaitExten(15) Wait for 15 seconds for the user to enter an extension

2f: exten => i,1,Playback(pbx-invalid) The special "i" extension is called when a user enters an invalid extension. In this case it tells the caller they entered an invalid extension.

2g: exten => i,2,Goto(voicenetwork-incoming,s,1) The caller is then sent back to the start: extension "s", priority "1".

2h: exten => t,1,Playback(vm-goodbye) If a caller doesn't enter any extension number before the 15 second wait time, this causes a "timeout" and sends the process to the special "t" extension. It says "goodbye" to the users ...

2i: exten => t,2,Hangup() ... and hangs up the call.

2j: exten => 101,1,Dial(${USER1},10) If the user enters a valid extension, in this case if they enter the extension "101", they are taken to this section which dials the phone registered to user ${USER1} (USER1 is a global variable defined in the [globals] section that evaluates to "user1") for 10 seconds. If it is answered then it ends there, if not, after 10 seconds it goes to the next "priority" for that extension; in this case that is "priority" 2.

2k: exten => 101,2,VoiceMail(u101@default) if the phone isn't answered within 10 seconds, the caller is sent to the voice mail define in the "voicemail.conf" file as voice mail box "101" in the "default" context. The "u101" reference plays a message to the caller telling them that the person at extension 101 is "unavailable" (ie. didn't pick up the ringing phone.) ...

2l: exten => 101,3,Hangup() ... and then hangs up

2m: exten => 101,102,VoiceMail(b101@default) This is similar to step "2k" in that it sends the caller to voice mail of the extension dialed. The difference here is that this step is reached only if the extension "rings busy", rather than simply is not picked up (ie. the user is already on the phone and has all the lines in use.) The "b101" tells the voice mail system to play the "user is busy, or already on a call" message when it takes the caller to to the voice mail system ...

2n: exten => 101,103,Hangup() ... and then hangs up.

2p, 2q, 2r, 2s, and 2t are the same configuration as 2j,2k,2l,2m & 2n except they are for "user2" rather than "user1" (you can create more users by replicating these lines with a new user name, extension number, and voice mail box number.) The only notable difference is in step "2p" where instead of using the ${USER2} variable I use the full "SIP/user2" user definition.

Note 3: This is the context for regular outbound dialing to local 10 digit dialing (my area requires the complete 10 digits for even local dialing, some areas may only require 7 digits, they can change the line _9NXXXXXXXXX,1,Dial(SIP/voicenetwork_peer/${EXTEN:1}) to _9NXXXXXX,1,Dial(SIP/voicenetwork_peer/${EXTEN:1}) or add a new conext if they have local 7 digit dialing for your own area code and local 10 digit dialing for local calls to a different area code.

What that statement says is any number dialed that starts with "9", has the second number in the range of 2 to 9 ("N") followed by any other 6 digits, then send it to the "SIP/voicenetwork_peer" context with the first digit (the "9") removed (the ${EXTEN:1} macro.)

The next two lines are in case of any problems with sending the number to the outbound context. If the lines are all in use, you only dial 9 numbers, you dial 91xxxxxxxxx or 90xxxxxxxxx, or some other problem, you get the message that the number couldn't be dialed.

Note 4: Same as Note 3, except this allows those in this context to also dial long distance numbers (91* for North America long distance, and 9011* for international long distance.)

Note 5: This context is to determine what internal phones can do. First we add the outbound-local and outbound-long-distance contexts to this context to allow them to make outside calls. Then for each internal extension we configure what happens when an internal line dials that extension number: In this case we dial the number for 10 seconds, and fail over to voicemail then hang up just as we did in Step 2.

sip.conf:

[general] ; Note 7
context=default
svrlookup=yes
externip=[your external IP address] ;7a
localnet=192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 ;7b
register => [peer number]:[password]@did.voicenetwork.ca/ ;7c

[user1] ; Note 8
type=friend ;8a
secret=[password] ;8b
nat=yes ;8c
host=dynamic ;8d
canreinvite=no ;8e
context=internal ;8f

[user2] ; Note 9
type=friend
secret=[password]
nat=yes
host=dynamic
canreinvite=no
context=internal

Note 7: The general context.

7a: This is your external IP address as seen by those out on the Internet. You will need this if you want anyone to initiate a connection from the Internet side. Not really needed for Voice Network Inc. to connect to you as you will be initiating the connection from your asterisk server To determine your external IP address, browse to http://myipaddress.com or some similar website which will show you what address they see you as, or look at your routers "status page" which should (but doesn't always depending upon the ISP you use) show the same information.

7b: Your local IP subnet definition, hopefully you know what yours is, but on most home networks it is either 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 or 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0

7c: You get your peer number when you create one on the Voice Network Inc. website, and the password is the one you define in the "password" field when you configure that peer. Voice Network Inc has a "How-to-videos" section where they show the setup of a Trixbox configuration ... the first part of that video goes into how to create and configure the peer on the Voice Network Inc side of things. You can follow these instructions until they start talking about the Trixbox specifically as those instructions do not directly apply at that point.

Note 8: This section details the configuration of the typical internal IP phone.

8a: Use "friend" here, which simply means that the device both makes and receives connections from the Asterisk box.

8b: This password is one shared by the Asterisk server and the IP phone (the ID will be whatever is in the square brackets, which in this case is "user1". Use this information when configuring the IP phone.

8c: I set "nat=yes" by default as it seems to work even when the address isn't nat-ed ... I may find out later that this is a mistake somehow, but at this point it works, so until I learn otherwise so it shall stay, but this is a warning to those reading that I don't have a clue as to what I'm doing here.

8d: I believe that "dynamic" means that the IP address of the device is handled by DHCP. Again this is just guessing.

8e: "canreinvite=no" causes all communications to be forced to go through the asterisk server. The "yes" option means the asterisk sets up the call and then the two end-point IP devices start talking directly after that and only check back with the asterisk when needed. This is ok if there is no NAT in the way, but NAT ruins the whole process, so it is usually better in the case of a home system like this to just let everything stay connected to the asterisk server.

8f: "context=internal" put this user in the "internal context", which as we say earlier also puts them in the outbound-local and outbound-long-distance contexts as well.

Note 9: The same thing as Note 8, but for user2 this time.

;
; Make sure that you have checked the Send DID option under the EDIT DID option
;
; Edit your SIP.CONF file and place the following lines in it

[voicenetwork_peer] ; Note 10
type=friend
host=did.voicenetwork.ca
dtmfmode=rfc2833
insecure=very
disallow=all
allow=ulaw
context=voicenetwork-incoming ; incoming DID calls will arrive in the voicenetwork-incoming context

Note 10: Add this to your sip.conf file. You get this from Voice Netowrk Inc when you create a peer. After the peer is created, there will be a link in the "configuration example" called "asterisk", click on that to find this same information and a bit more, of which I have already explained in this post.

voicemail.conf: (This file was one sample file I left alone, and just added the following lines to the default section.)

[default] ;Note 11

101 => [password],user1
102 => [password],user2

Note 11: This section "creates" the users voice mail, assigns the extension to the voicemail, and sets the password.

X-Lite Configuration: To be determined. I have a working configuration, but only for internal phones. I am having some trouble getting external phones to work fully, even if I connect using a VPN ... more on this later.

VoIP - Voice Network Inc

2007-10-07T22:18:00.000-04:00

In order to connect your asterisk to real people with real telephones you are going to need to do at least one of two things: Put some hardware into your Asterisk box that allows you to connect your computer to one or more standard telephone lines (or POTS; Plane Old Telephone Service;) or subscribe to a VoIP provider that you can connect to over the Internet and which in turn provides the hardware that connects to the regular telephone system.

Now, there are advantages and disadvantages to both options which basically boil down to features, flexibility, and cost advantages for the VoIP provider, vs quality and simplicity for your standard POTS provider.

Since I am mainly concerned with cost and flexibility, I have decided to go with VoIP.

There are various levels of VoIP providers, but in the end, the basic services they all offer are what are known as DID (Direct Inward Dialing) services and PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) gateway services. Many vendors provide other services on top of those basic services, but as long as you have the basic services and you are willing to do a little work, you can pretty well build yourself a system with all the same services the big VoIP vendors provide, and at no (or little) extra cost.

Those basic services, DID and PSTN gateway services provide the following functionality:

DID (Direct In Dial:) gives you a phone number and allows people to dial that number. When they dial that number it connects them to the VoIP provider, which in turn passes that call over the Internet to your VoIP phone or PBX (Private Branch Exchange - which in my case is my Asterisk box.)

PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) Gateway: This service allows you to connect your VoIP phone or PBX to a VoIP providers server, which in turn connects to the PSTN and allows you to call other people connected to the regular PSTN using their POTS phones.

Once you have subscribed to these two services (and they don't necessarily have to be from the same VoIP vendor,) and your VoIP phone or PBX are configured properly, you have the ability to make and receive phone calls from anyone with a phone.

Of course, when you subscribe to a "full service" vendor such as 'Rogers Home Phone', or 'Vonage', you also get some fancy "bells and whistles" such as voice mail, call waiting, call forwarding, etc. All of which are provided for by those vendor's big PBX systems, but since you also have a PBX system (Asterisk) you now have the capability to provide those same features and options without having to pay the high "all in" cost, or "additional charges" usually associated with the "full service" vendors.

So what's the difference? Why should I do it myself rather than let Rogers or Vonage do it for me? Simple ... the basic charge for a DID service can be as low as $5 a month ($1 if you meet certain traffic requirements) and PSTN Gateway services can go as low as $0.01 per minute. So instead of paying $20 a month for a Rogers / Vonage service, plus extra if you want any fancy options, you can pay $10 or less for the basic DID & PSTN Gateway services and build your own fancy options as needed.

So doing some basic research on VoIP providers available in the Greater Toronto Area, I decided I'd give 'Voice Network Inc' a try, and subscribed to their DID and PSTN gateway services.

At this moment I do not have any feel for the quality of their VoIP network, so I cannot really make any positive or negative recommendations as yet on their service. My rational for going with this company was based on them providing features that seemed to best meet my needs.

Some of the reasons I picked Voice Network Inc.

Payment methods: The included the regular methods, including CC, Paypal, and online banking. They also offered EMail money transfer which works best for me. You simply email them a deposit of either $15, $20, $25, or $100, into your account balance, and use the balance to pay for monthly DID and phone call charges. In my case since I'm evaluating the service I went with a small $15 deposit, and purchased one DID number (any charges for making calls is deducted from your balance.) I sent the EMail money transfer Friday evening, and the amount was deposited in my balance at 5am Saturday morning.

Local Calling Charges: Incoming calls are free (I paid $1 a month for the DID, but there are usage conditions that mean that I will likely be charged about $6 a month in the end, but this is "up front" information and will not be a surprise,) and outgoing calls to just about anywhere in Canada will be charged at $0.01 per minute.

Long Distance Charges: My wife's family lives in SouthEast Asia, and the charge for calling her family in that particular city is just slightly over $0.02 per minute; cheaper than your average phone card ... we shall see if the quality is any better.

My initial testing with ths service for local calling seems to be working out quite well in terms of quality ... my first call did sound a little "broken", but when I checked, I was making the call while my wife was streaming live TV from Asian, and the MythTV box was running a "full bore" bittorrent "upload" ... as soon as I turned off the bittorrent client the quality went to "excellent" ... seems that a project for the near future will be to get a hold of a DD-WRT compatible router and configure some QoS (Quality of Service) parameters for my home network.

Upcoming post: My Asterisk config files, which I used to build a basic dial in, dial out, multi extension, voice mail enabled, VoIP system.

Asterisk - Installing a home PBX

2007-10-07T20:40:00.000-04:00

As part of the process of reducing my communications bill I want to set up a VoIP service for home phone use. Now I could have just set up a single phone that connects to a VoIP provider, but I figure as long as I'm doing this why not build it on something that will be flexible enough to be useful for future projects, and be immediately able to provide extensions for myself, my wife and daughter.

So that's where Asterisk comes in. An Open-source telephony engine that has all the power of your average office PBX system plus added flexibility and it's free.

Installing asterisk onto my Linux box (same one I run MythTV on) was fairly easy, I simply downloaded the asterisk files from this page and followed the installation instructions at the Asterisk Guru page (Since my Linux system is a MythDora distribution, based on Fedora Core 6, I naturally followed the installation instructions for Fedora Core) .... Note: Some of the instructions don't work exactly as described, but nothing serious enough to mess things up.

Once installed, here are some important basic commands that you will need to know to make configuring the system possible.

Starting asterisk: at the root # prompt type "safe_asterisk"
Stopping asterisk: first connect to the asterisk console by type at the root # prompt: "asterisk -vvvr"; then type at the asterisk console ">" prompt: "stop gracefully".

I haven't added anything yet to start asterisk automatically on reboot, but I assume the simplest way would be to add the line "/usr/sbin/safe_asterisk" to the end of the /etc/rc.d/rc.local file.

Following posts will be in regards to signing up to a VoIP SIP provider, and configuring the asterisk to do something useful.

Internet Service - TekSavvy

2007-10-07T19:20:00.000-04:00

Before cancelling my Rogers "Extreme" account, I decided to get a DSL service installed and see if the speeds were at least as good as Cable.

So I call up Teksavvy last Monday (Oct 1) and ask some general questions to make sure I am not committing myself into any long term contracts, so I can have the DSL installed, and if it doesn't work out, then I can cancel the service and just continue using Rogers.

The sales person explained it all to me, and confirmed that I can cancel at any time, so I went ahead and ordered the ADSL service.

Since I already had an ADSL modem from a previous ADSL account a few years back, I didn't need to order one of their modems. Total cost (paid via online backing bill payment method ... the sales guy gave me an account number, then I simply logged onto my online bank account; added them as a "payee"; paid the install charge and 1st months service for a total of $62.59; gave the sales guy the confirmation number; and he gave me an installed date of Friday Oct 5.

Come Oct 5th I take my DSL modem, plug it into the phone line, hook up a spare Dlink router to the modem, configure it with my ID and password, and wait.

Around 3pm I noticed that the green "connected" light was steady, and a couple of minutes after there was a knock on my door. A technician was there telling me that everything was hooked up and should be ready to go. A quick test confirmed everything was working. The tech explained that my CO was very close so I should get near perfect speeds (which I also confrmed ... my 5Mb download, and 800Kb upload rated speeds are in the ~4.4Mb download and 700+ Kb upload.)

So far so good. Rogers can expect a call from me on Monday or Tuesday.

Note: Since I am using "Dry Loop DSL" on top of the usual $29.95 per month charge, there is also a "band B" $9.10 per month surcharge, making the total monthly bill $39.05 plus tax (which I believe is only GST.) According to the Wikipedia article, the "band B" surcharge may no longer be applicable, so I may ask them about this a little latter on after I confirm that accuracy of the Wikipedia information.

Installation Cost
=============
9.10 Band B
29.95 Monthly
19.99 install
-----------------
62.59 incl GST.

Preparing for the move Away from Rogers

2007-10-02T18:49:00.001-04:00

As mentioned in other posts, I am attempting to move away from Rogers and their high priced services and see just how much money I can save on my $230 / month Rogers communication bill (Digital cable, Internet, and cell phones.)

My plan as it stands now is to look into going with the following:

---------------------------------------
Cell Phones - Replace the two Rogers "family plan" phones and one Fido pay-as-you go phone with three 7-11 Speakout $100 specials ($100 get you $100 air time and a free phone.)

I can swap out the 7-11 sim-card into my existing rogers phones as they are on the same network anyway and should not even need to be unlocked.

My current cell charges are about $120 per month, or $1440 per year, of which I use about 200 minutes per month, or 2400 minutes per year. Of those 2400 minutes, about 1/3 of them were family to family calls, and the other 2/3 were to "non-plan" numbers. Since the 7-11 phones don't have a "free family to family" concept, the 1/3 (800 minutes) need to be doubled as they will cost double. So the total minutes needed will be in the 3200 range. At $0.20 per minute, that means I'm looking at at worst case about $640 worth of minutes.

But instead of just counting on the cell phones I figure I will also set up a cheap VoIP account and use that for normal ""home phone" usage. I can also set up a a simple skype, or VoIP to VoIP type service to keep in touch with the wife while I'm at work.

At the moment I'm looking at Voice Network Inc, mostly because they have the easiest method if signing up, and they seem to be the least expensive ... just what I need to get my feet wet and see if this will work or not.

So the cell phone usage should be minimal, with the bulk of the communications done over the Internet as direct VoIP to VoIP, or through a minimal $0.01 per minuite VoIP DID/Gateway service.

So if I use the same amount of minutes I've used for the last couple of years, and use it in the same pattern, then it should be something like 200 minutes per month total, 66 of those being family minutes (most of which will now be "free",) and the remaining 134 minutes mostly of the $0.01 cent varity.

Total estimated cost:

Cell 7-11 x 3 = $300 + tax = $342 (icluding 300 minutes)
VoIP = $4.50 per month for DID service x 12 = $54 + $1.34 per month usage x 12 = $16.08

Total = $412.08

Additional charge of $200 to get out of the rogers contract early would make it $612.08 ... still a good savings, even if I have to buy another $100 or two of cell phone minutes.
------------------------------------------

Internet. This one was easy, Rogers charges over $50 per month, and traffic shapes the hell out of anything useful. After reading the reviews over on Canadian ISP, and looking at the number of ratings, and the overall score, teksavvy was the obvious choice.

The cost to open an account with them cost a total of $62.59, which includes the months service plus installation charge, and taxes.

Regular costs will be $29.95 for the DSL service, and because it is a "dry loop DSL" (no telephone service on the line) service there is a "band charge" ... in my case it is a "band B" charge of $9.10 per month, making the total $41.40 including GST. Cheaper, and there is no traffic shaping, not usage cap, and the support is magnitudes better than Rogers.
------------------

So the first thing I needed to do was to see if I'm under any contracts, as in order to get out of a contract there is usually some sort of penalty.

So I checked my cell phone contract first, and found out that I was under contract until November 2008, and the penalty for getting out early is $20 for each month left on the contract, up to a maximum of $200 ... I'm hoping that contract applies to the whole "family plan, and not to each individual cell phone, but I certainly doubt it, but even if it is, $400 to break the contract will still leave a sizable savings ... even more so the next year.

I called Rogers to see what kind of contract I was under for Internet and Cable, and it turns out that I am under their "bundle" contract, which if I want to break it would cost me all the saving (15%) that I received from the start of the contract. Fortunately the bundle contract is over the first week of November 2007, which gives me just enough time to test out the Teksavvy internet and VoIP stuff before I go and cancel Rogers ass.

Anyway, we shall see how everything goes ... more to follow.

MythDora & Media MVP (rev H3) Configuration

2007-09-26T10:45:00.000-04:00

Configuring a MythDora 4.0 standard install to work with a Media MVP rev H3 box.

This article describes the MythDora 4.0 and Media MVP configuration I used to get the Media MVP playing streaming media from my main MythDora Multi-Media system.

Video found on youtube showing basic functions of both MythTV & the Media MVP

Update (Oct 11, 2007): Before doing anything, make sure that you have turned off your firewall on the MythDora box.

To see if the MythDora firewall is running or not, open up a terminal session and type:

# /etc/rc.d/init.d/iptables status

If this returns anything but "Firewall is stopped." then you will need to disable the firewall before proceeding. To stop the firewall do the following:

#/etc/rc.d/init.d/iptables stop
# mv /etc/sysconfig/iptables-config /etc/sysconfig/iptables-config.old

It's probably not the best idea to run permanently without a firewall, but at the moment I don't have the details on setting the firewall to include the proper rules to allow the necessary communications (tcp & udp) between the two boxes. When I figure out the proper rules, I will update the post to include a generic addition to the iptables-config file.

Basic system information:

My MythDora box is based on an AMD single core 3200+ processor, with 1GB of ram, and an 80GM main drive (I also have a 250 GB secondary drive, which I use to mount at various mount points to best make use of disk space, but that configuration is beyond the scope of this article.) I have "hard coded" this box with an IP Address of 192.168.1.10. MythDora also runs DHCP, two tftp servers, and a special "mvprelay" service (more on these later.)

Additionally, while not relevant to this article, I use a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150 for capturing TV, and an Nvidia GeForce 6200 Turbocache video card.

The Media MVP is a "rev H3" and is assigned an IP Address of 192.168.1.100 via DHCP.

The network itself runs a Netgear wireless router (with 4 wired ports. Both the MythDora and Media MVP are connected to the wired ports. Workstations and laptops are a mixture of wired and wireless.) The Netgear router handles the gateway and DNS services, but has had its DHCP service disabled (DHCP runs on the MythDora box as it is more flexible and configurable running there, and depending upon your own router you will likely need to do the same.)

Installation Summary:

Configure the DHCP server
Configure two tftp services (on on port 69, and the other on port 16869)
Download, compile, and run the mvprelay program
Download the dongle.bin.mvpmc file
Create a dongle.bin.ver file
Create and edit a dongle.bin.config file
Set up your MythDora box for NFS shares
Install and configure VLC
Boot the Media MVP box.

Note: The following details are specifically for a MythDora 4.0 installation and an H3 rev (it should also apply to other Hx revisions but I have not tested any other than the H3) of the Media MVP box. If you do not have both of these prerequisites, then these instructions will likely not be accurate (although they may help to give you an idea of what you need to do even if you have some other Linux distro, or rev of the Media MVP box.

For installations with different Linux distros or Media MVP revs, your best bet is to check out the information available on the mvpmc homepage, the mvpmc wiki, or the mvpmc sourceforge forums.

For those of you who are already familiar, or not interested in knowing all the boring details, all the important information is contained in the "quoted" sections . So like for all the parts of this post that look like this:

Details are in sections that look like this, and all the really important instructions are in RED

Configure the DHCP Service:

Summary: I had to disable the DHCP service on my router as it was not capable of providing the bootp (bootstrap protocol) information that is required to run the Media MVP box.

Think of the Media MVP as a Linux server without a disk. This means that the Operating System needs to be stored on a server with a disk, and that we need to be able to boot the Media MVP; give it some basic network information; and tell it where it can find its Operating System. It can then load that Operating System up and perform it's multimedia functions.

On a MythDora 4.0 system, you will find the DHCP configuration file at /etc/dhcpd.conf. Open this file and edit it similar to the following:

ddns-update-style interim;
ignore client-updates;

subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {

# --- default gateway
option routers 192.168.1.1;
option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;

option nis-domain "yourdomain.com";
option domain-name "yourdomain.com";
option domain-name-servers 192.168.1.1;

option time-offset -18000; # Eastern Standard Time

range 192.168.1.20 192.168.1.50;

}

group {
next-server 192.168.1.10; # IP address of your TFTP server
#
host mvp {
# NOTE: Change the hardware ethernet to the MAC address of your actual MVP
hardware ethernet 00:00:00:00:00:00;
fixed-address 192.168.1.100;
filename "dongle.bin.mvpmc";
option root-path "/home/mvp,rsize=4096,wsize=4096,nolock";
}

}

Careful of the line wraps that might show up due to web page formatting, they are invalid in a real config file.

Lines highlighted in red should be modified to reflect your own network information.

This DHCPD configuration does the following:

Sets a range of IP addresses from 192.168.1.20 to 192.168.1.50 to be handed out to any computer that requests an IP address from DHCP.
Sets a special IP address, 192.168.1.100, for a computer that has a specific hardware address, which in this case will be the Media MVP hardware.
Not explicit in this configuration, but impled is that all other IP addresses can be used for "static" addressing, which in the case of the main MythDora computer is configured with a "static" ip address of 192.168.1.10. The DHCP is not configured to do anything with that address, so it does not cause any conflicts.
This configuration also does one more thing. It tells any host in the "group" section (in this case the mvp host) that it should look on the server with the address of 192.168.1.10 (MythDora) for a file called "dongle.bin.mvpmc"; upload it to memory; and attempt to boot using this file.

Configuring the tftp (trivial file transfer protocol) service:

Summary: In the above DHCPD configuration t was mentioned that the DHCPD config tells the Media MVP box to upload a file called "dongle.bin.mvpmc". Of course files just don't upload themselves, so we will have to configure a service that will allow the Media MVP to do its uploading. This service is called "tftp" (the Trivial File Transfer Protocol.)

It should be noted that the "H revs" of the Media MVP do some sort of "double boot" process, which I've never found a good description of, but apparently uploads the "dongle" file first using tftp on port 69, prepares itself in some mysterious manner, then reboots and uploads the "dongle" file again using tftp but this time on port 16869 (or it may be the other way around, but it essentially means that you need to instances of the tftp service running, one instance on each port.)

The recommended method of enabling a standard tftp service on the MythDora box (which is just a distro of Fedora Core 6 running MythTV) is to edit the /etc/xinetd.d/tftp file and change the "disabled = yes" to "disabled = no". For some reason this did not work for me, but fortunately there is another relatively easy method that works just as well, and works for both the port 69 and port 16869 instance of tftp.

Edit the /etc/rc.d/rc.local file and add the following lines

/usr/sbin/in.tftpd -l -a :16869 -s /tftpboot -v
/usr/sbin/in.tftpd -l -a -s /tftpboot -v

Then save the file.

You will have to reboot the server in order for the rc.local file to take effect, but we will do this later, as there is still one more edit we need to do to this file. After we finish all the other configuration changes, we will reboot the server when all the changes have been made.

Downloading, Compiling, and Running the mvprelay service:

Summary: The Media MVP comes with it's own software which runs only on Windows. You load the program on your Windows machine and it starts a "service" which when you boot up the Media MVP harware, responds to a query from the hardware for a "Streaming Media Server". Since you will not be running the Media MVP Windows software on your MythDora machine, you will need to run the "mvprelay" program which serves the same, or similar function on Linux.

The process of getting the mvprelay program goes like this:

Open your browser and browse to this link.
Highlight all the text on that page and click copy.
Open you favourite Linux editor and paste the text into it and save as "mvprelay.c"
Compile the file by typing the command "gcc -o mvprelay mvprelay.c"
Copy the resulting mvprelay file to /usr/local/bin or wherever you think appropiate.
edit the /etc/rc.d/rc.local file and add the line "/usr/local/bin/mvprelay 16881 5906 6337 192.168.1.10 &"

Again, you will have to reboot the MythDora box in order for these changes to take effect, but since there is still one more change we will have to make to the rc.local file, we can wait until that change is made before rebooting.

Download the dongle.bin.mvpmc file:

Summary: The dongle.bin.mvpmc file is actually a small specially modified Linux kernel, which is what the Media MVP should run in order to communicate with your MythDora box and stream live TV, recordings and videos.

You should probably get the latest dongle.bin.mvpmc file, which can be done by going browsing to the Sourceforge mvpmc project and selecting the latest version, but in these instructions I will use the one I downloaded at the time of this writing.

You should also be aware that when I used the dongle file as named, it didn't work for me. I've read a few posts on the forums of people having similar problems, so I renamed the file to the more generic "dongle.bin", which should work for everyone. I'd suggest you do the same, just in case you are one of the unlucky ones.

Download the dongle using the command: "wget http://superb-west.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/mvpmc/dongle.bin.mvpmc-0.3.3"
Rename the file to "dongle.bin"
Copy "dongle.bin" to the /tftpboot directory

Create a dongle.bin.ver file:

Summary: Supposedly this file is used to determine if there is a need to reload the dongle.bin file. I'm not sure if this is true, or how it works, but it is needed so create it.

To create the bongle.bin .ver file:

Go to the /tftpboot directory
Run the command "dd if=dongle.bin of=dongle.bin.ver bs=1 count=40 skip=52"

You should end up with a 40 byte file named dongle.bin.ver

Create and edit a dongle.bin.config file:

Summary: This is the file that the Media MVP reads after it boots, and does all the detailed configuration stuff such as setting the time, running the application that connects to the MythDora system, mounts any NFS mounts that might be needed, and a bunch of other important, ad not so important things.

Here is the dongle.bin.config file that I use:

TZ='EST5EDT4,M4.1.0/02:00:00,M10.5.0/02:00:00' ; export TZ
echo "TZ='EST5EDT4,M4.1.0/02:00:00,M10.5.0/02:00:00'; export TZ" > /etc/shell.config;
rdate -s time-a.nist.gov
echo "192.168.1.10 mythtv.yourdomain.com> mythtv ">>/etc/hosts
mkdir /storage
/etc/nfsmount.sh 192.168.1.10:/storage /storage
mvpmc -f /etc/helvR10.fnt -y 192.168.1.10 -s 192.168.1.10 -r /storage/recordings -t /usr/share/mvpmc/easy.xml --startup mythtv -u mythtv -p mythtv -T mythconverg --vlc 192.168.1.10 &

Of course, the RED parts should be modified to use the information specific to your network.

If you are wondering about the parameters used for the mvpmc command, the complete list with explanations are listed here.

Create this file in your favourite Linux editor and save it as /tftpboot/dongle.bin.config

Set up your MythDora box for NFS shares:

Summary: This step configures NFS on your MythDora box to allow the Media MVP box to mount the /storage directory from MythDora box as though it were local to the Media MVP box. This provides to advantages, first it allows access to the MythTV "ring buffer", which means you can pause, and rewind live TV, and in conjunction with VLC allows you to stream other videos from your MythDora box to the Media MVP box. If you do not want to do this, then you will need to read through the documentation and modify the dongle.bin.config as necessary to remove the relevant NFS related parameters from the "mvpmc" command.

Here is what you will need to do in order to allow NFS access.

Edit or create the /etc/exports file to include the line "/storage 192.168.1.100(ro)" (modify the IP address to be the address of your Media MVP box.)
Restart the NFS service with the following command "/etc/rc.d/init.d/nfs restart" (This is not totally necessary, except if the NFS service is already started, but by doing this you will be able to make sure the exports file doesn't have any major errors that would make it fail.)
Set the NFS service to start automatically on reboot by using the command "chkconfig nfs on"

Install and configure VLC:

Summary: VLC is a powerful media player and steamer. The Media MVP can be configured to use the LC streaming capability in order to play videos other than simply via the MythTV protocol which would limit the Media MVP to just playing Live and recorded TV. With this configured you can throw all your legal (of course) bittorrent videos and such into your /storage/videos directory on the MythDora box, then using the Media MVP file browser, you can select and stream and play those videos as well.

To install and configure the VLC streamer do the following:

Install VLC by using the command "yum install vlc"
Configure VLC to start automatically on reboot by editing the /etc/rc.d/rc.local file and adding the line "su -c "nohup vlc -I Telnet --sout-transcode-audio-sync --sout-transcode-deinterlace &" mythtv" (I run this as the default mythtv user to make sure it have the right permissions and environment. It may work just as well running as root, but I haven't tested it, so if oyu want to, go ahead."

Since you have now made all the necessary configuration changes to the /etc/rc.d/rc.local file, you can, and should, now reboot your computer so that all those changes take effect. If you choose not to do so now, don't forget to do so before booting up the Media MVP box.

Boot the Media MVP box:

Summary: Okay, this is where we find out if I've documented everthing correctly, and if you followed the instructions properly .... Good Luck.

Before putting the power to the Media MVP box, make sure you have connected it to the network and plugged it into your television's audio & video jacks (I use the RCA yellow video jack, but if you have an S-Video input that should work just as well, and as far as I can the Media MVP send signal to both at the same time so there should no extra configuration needed ... but I could be wrong, so if the S-Video doesn't work try the RCA jack and then go read the documentation.

If everything goes well when you put the power to the Media MVP you should see something similar to the following:

A screen comes up with 5 large grey blocks at the bottom. The first four blocks should turn black and the screen should switch
You might get a message asking to hit "OK" within 3 seconds. You shouldn't have to do anything at this point, but if the rest of the boot doesn't go as described below, reboot and hit OK at this point to see if the Media MVP has detected the "Streaming Video Server" at the MythDora Address.
The next screen you see should have 10 small blocks at the bottom of the screen. These should step through turning black with the words "loading application" above it. The blocks may cycle through a couple of times, but within 15 seconds or so the screen should flash black.
The next screen should be black except for a blue "splotch" in the middle of the screen with mvpmv.org. This should show for a few more seconds and then you should see the MythTV menu appear on the screen.
At this point, you are on your own, browse around and check out all the menu options. Note, some of these options do not work as yet (at least in many cases, and mine in particular.) For instance, the "Live TV" option should work, but the "New Live TV" option may not work and actually cause the mvpmc application to crash and restart (this causes no damage, the application simply restarts and you can continue on.) The crashes seem to be caused by the version of the dongle you are using, although in this case until you go into your mythtv mysql database and configure the database to allow remote access your system may only give you an error message about "sql access" rather than crashing.

Misc Info:

Summary: I'll add some more stuff here that should make the MythDora box a little more useful for organizing your media. When I get some more time I will document how I installed and configured SAMBA in order to allow my daughter to upload her music to the system ; and how I installed and configured VNC to set up some "virtual X session" where you can do some unattended bittorrent downloading, burning DVD backups, and such on the MythDora box, and control it all from your firefox or IEexplorer browser. Ie. Use your browser as though it were a monitor, keyboard, and mouse attached to your MythDora box, and run applications as though your were sitting in front of the machine. You can also just close the browser and the apps keep on running, and can be reconnected to your browser, password protected, any time you want to monitor progress.

Introduction

2007-09-26T06:53:00.000-04:00

A little introduction:

Who: A middle aged guy who hates to give tons of money to large companies for things and services that I could do myself and at far less cost, or with a little research effort could get the same services from a smaller company at half the price.

Where: Toronto, Ontario, Canada. So the information found here may not be of much use to anyone unless they too live in Toronto. I suspect though that much of this will apply to anyone, just that it will probably be more directly relevant the closer you live to Toronto.

What: This blog will deal mostly with technology issues and how to "roll your own" solutions, or in cases where you can't really do it yourself, point you toward the least expensive alternatives.

My main focus will be on issues like Television (cable, vs Satellite, vs over the air; TiVo alternatives, consolidating your media, and so on,) Internet providers, and Communications (cell phone services, VoIP choices.)

When: It just so happens that currently I get all the above mentioned services from one source; that being Rogers Cable. Now I don't have a big issue with Rogers, they do a decent job of providing these services, but they're not perfect, and since my "bundle" contract is over at the end of October, which means I either need to sign up for another 2 or 3 year contract, or have my $230 monthly bill for Cable, Internet, and cell services go up at least another 15%, I figured this would be a perfect time to see how I could go about looking at alternatives.

Why: As mentioned above, my current Internet, Cable, and communications bill amount to around $230 a month. That's WITH a 15% discount for getting all these services from one company (Rogers) and signing a 3 year contract. Even doing a little bit of research I can easily see that if I were to do a little shopping around I could save a grand or two a year, get all the same services, plus some more, and have a lot more control over how everything works.

How: Exactly! How indeed will I accomplish this. Well, it will probably be by doing a lot of research, and comparing what's available. It will also take a little work building and purchasing some relatively inexpensive technology to attempt to accomplish what the big service providers charge "an arm and a leg" to provide.

The current Plan: Before I even seriously considered doing this, the first thing I figured I should do was to build myself a MythTV system. I did this because I figured I would need to start somewhere, and rather than swapping out an existing service (cable, phone, Internet,) that I would build something I didn't already have, a Personal Video Recorder (PVR), that would cost money to purchase or rent, and that could potentially help me save money later on (ie. rather than having a digital cable box in each room, I could throw in a couple of TV capture cards, connect one to a digital box, one or two to analog cable, stream live or recorded TV to the beedrooms ... thus rather than paying for 2 or 3 digital boxes, I could just get one, and make use of streaming and "TiVo-ing" to makeup the difference.

I currently have a MythTV box running and working, including streaming to the bedroom. There is still some more work to do before it is the way I want it, but I now have the "theory" down, so I am confident that what I want can be done. So now I can confidently move on to finding cell, land-line, and Internet alternatives. So stay tuned.