crashsystems.net » Miscellaneous

Using the Streamzap IR remote in Boxee on Ubuntu

Douglass Clem — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 03:53:18 +0000

As I mentioned last post, I am setting up a Linux multimedia system. This system will be running Boxee, a wonderful media center program that went into beta today. Though I will be able to use a laptop’s mouse and keyboard on it, I still wanted to be able to use a regular remote control. Though the computer is taking forever to ship, the remote came in today. After doing some research and asking around, I went with the Streamzap IR remote.

Getting this remote to work with Boxee was rather simple. First step, use a package manager to install the package lirc. During the package configuration, you will be prompted to select an IR device to use. Select Streamzap PC Remote. After the device has been selected, package configuration will ask about a transmitter device. Just select None. To test that the package is configured correctly, run the command irw in a terminal, then press buttons on the remote. If everything worked, you should see output consisting of a bunch of numbers, the button pressed on the remote, and the name of the remote.

Next Boxee needs a config file for the remote. Copy /opt/boxee/system/Lircmap.xml to $HOME/.boxee/Lircmap.xml. Now open the Lircmap.xml copy that is in the UserData folder, and add the code from this forum post just before the ending tag.

Save the file and open Boxee, and the Streamzap remote should now work.

Bing’s Ballmer Bias (in search of monkey boy)

Douglass Clem — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:21:06 +0000

Much has already been said about the fact that Microsoft’s shiny “new” search engine, Bing.com, happens to have a little bias. I think I just discovered a new example of this bias. Try finding the Monkey Boy video on both Google and Bing, and see which one’s auto-complete is the most helpful.

Simple email encryption with FireGPG

Douglass Clem — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 01:26:32 +0000

Privacy was once the default for most conversations between individuals. While the Internet has become an extremely useful tool for facilitating conversation, it has also done away with almost all of the privacy that was once inherent in communication. This has profound societal consequences that few have even begun to contemplate. Furthermore, the spread of unencrypted email means that it is nearly trivial for various repressive governments to spy on those who differ from the government sanctioned political and religious norms.

Though the technology was once closely guarded by the United States government as a form of export controlled munitions, encryption is now freely available to the masses. However, much of the technology is not easily understandable by the masses. With this in mind, I wrote Simple email encryption with FireGPG as a cross platform guide for email encryption, with a target audience of ordinary, non-technical Internet users.

Simple email encryption with FireGPG is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license, meaning you are free to copy it, share it, modify and translate it, as long as you do so under the terms of the license. If you do make a derivative or translation, please tell me about it so that I can link to it from the project page.

I plan on periodically updating the guide as changes are made in the FireGPG extension. If you have suggestions for improvement, please leave a comment on this page or contact me. You can subscribe to this RSS feed for updates.

Download Version 1.0

Open Document Format
PDF (view in browser)
Screenshot files, both original and edited (for remixing)

Finding Myself In Strange Places

Douglass Clem — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:16:58 +0000

The Internet is a strange place, the web of interlinking and copying that is constantly happening. My previous blog post was probably my most widely read post to date, not that this means much. However, I find it entertaining to occasionally to search for crashsystems.net in Google, to see what comes up.

Something that surprised me is that I made it on both Digg and Reddit, with 12 and 26 hits respectively thus far. I must admit, as of the time of this writing, I caused the most recent dig on Digg.com, but the point is that I was not the one to submit it! This gives me warm, fuzzy feelings all over.

Though being on Digg and Reddit is amazing, showing up on the following site is certainly the most perplexing. Click here to go to that page, or just look at the picture below.

Douglass Clem for President 2008

Douglass Clem — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:34:17 +0000

Anyone who has read my blog before, or has talked with me about politics, knows that I think the current political system is broken. Therefore, I’ve decided to announce my bid for the 2008 presidentual elections. It started underground, but we’re taking over!

Ever wonder why dialup sounded so weird?

Douglass Clem — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:00:42 +0000

If you have ever wondered why dialup sounded so strange, this video has the answers!

This week in picture

Douglass Clem — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:31:13 +0000

Just a few minutes ago I got idea for one picture that would perfectly summerise my week (and probably the past few months as well).

My First Foray Into Video

Douglass Clem — Sat, 24 May 2008 19:57:14 +0000

Today being a Saturday in which I had no plans, I was in the mood to a) write a blog post, and b) do something even geekier than normal. You can see the fruit of my labor below, in the form of a two minute screen cast I did of my desktop. In this short video you can see Compiz Fusion in action, which is a program that gives Linux fancy graphical effects that blow mac out of the water. The quality of the video is a little lower than I would like, but I’m satisfied with it, considering this is my first screen cast attempt ever.

You need to have flashplayer enabled to watch this Google video

Pictures From Nashville

Douglass Clem — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 02:17:28 +0000

One weekend last year in September, my sister drove up from Florida to visit. We spent most of this weekend doing (quite) random stuff in Nashville, during which I took a bunch of pictures. The following are the best of those.

Egypt Video, Fall 2005

Douglass Clem — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 22:18:10 +0000

To follow up on my previous post where I decided to organize my multimedia via blog posts and tags, here is the video from my trip to Egypt.