Aehso’s Output

Channel 4 Dispatches on Ryanair

“If that’s the best they can do after five months, then they should give up filming. Channel 4 can shove this programme up its jacksie,” said O’Leary. “There’s nothing in it.”

Micahel O’Leary’s view of tonite’s Dispatches exposé on Channel 4. He must be the only CEO in the world who speaks freely like this, credit where it is due. The show should be worth watching but if the sum total of their revelations is that Ryanair treat customers like crap, then they won’t be telling us anything we don’t already know.

EyeTV 200 and CyTV

I got an EyeTV 200 yesterday and have it hooked up to my NTL connection as I type (me, an impulse shopper, no!) The picture quality is as good as you’d expect with an analog feed.  A hint to NTL Dublin customers - tell the EyeTV tuner software that you are in Germany in order to get it to scan the full frequency range used by NTL’s analogue service.  I’m especially impressed with my newfound ability to record TV programs (via the mobile tvtv EPG) while out in pub on a Friday night - I’ll never miss MOTD again!
I had also blogged about EyeConnect in the past but CyTV caught my attention this evening.  How about that, I can turn my EyeTV into a live streaming video server just like that.

It would be good if NTL would allow us to use a CAM with their digital service though…

Linksys NSLU2 - apparently very hackable…

Stumbling across the same piece of hardware three times (on the Web!) in three days qualifies it for a blog entry I think. The Linksys NSLU2 (commonly referred to as “The Slug”) is a tiny network node that allows you to connect USB 2.0 Disk Drives to your home network. It’s a cheap and cheerful alternative to massively overspeced and overpriced 1U units. Hey, who has a rack in their house anyway?(I bet I’ll regret asking that)

The NSLU2 allows you to plug in two USB drives (housed in external enclosures presumably) and make them available to any other box else on your network. It sounds good for remote archiving and backup, although a SATA controller would be a worthy hardware addition to the spec. It’d also be good if it supported NFS, I thought…

A day later, I stumble across the curious (and skilled!) hacker. The box runs Linux and has a suitable large back door that can be used to install, well pretty much anything that will run on a headless linux server.  In theory it could be adapted to run NFS, FTP, HTTP daemons. How about a print server? I don’t see why not (although I admit I do already have an Airport Extreme doing exactly this at home). There are already two replacement firmware images available, OpenSlug and Unslung that allow you to do things like attach more than two drives, use it as a PBX or very interestingly, (apparently!) hook up a Hauppage WinTV-PVR USB2 to the Slug. By now I’m getting very curious - can anyone say “cheap PVR”?

Another day later and I stumble across someone who is trying to get an OSGi stack running on it. Not for any particular reason, just, you know, to see if it could be done. An interesting exercise at the very least, unfortunately, there the trail grows cold, I’m not sure if he succeeded.

Being Pamela, Channel 4 8th June @9pm.

A woman with four personalities has won the right for a documentary of her life to be screened on Channel 4 next. That’s a really tough call - one might initially wonder how she could have been denied the right to document her life, but, then I don’t think the responsible authority (and the Official Solicitor) were incorrect in questioning whether she had the capacity to give permission to take part.

Post GP

Bad head day! We’re all feeling worn out so we pile into the minivan with my sister and the kids and go on a tour. We stop off at Brighton beach to admire the multi-colored beach boxes (little huts on the edge of the beach that are supposedly worth > $30,000 each!) and then head down to the pier to absorb the views of the city. A couple of photos later we’re onto Fitzroy St. which is kinda a trendyish cafe strip. The kids are getting restless though so home it is, followed by a traditional Aussie barbque. Ah yes, now I remember why I like this country! Sean is looking a bit ropey though…