Geoff's Blog

Speeding Up xvncviewer

2011-08-02T17:58:00.000-07:00

If you are not worried about colour of the display and just want performance out of a Remote desktop connection ... use this syntax on your vnc client...

xvncviewer IPNUMBER:PORT -encoding hextile -bgr233 -compresslevel 1 -quality 0

Trash Bin Location on Nautilus on Ubuntu Linux

2011-07-09T04:11:00.000-07:00

If you want to find location of the Trash Directory. Turn on Hidden files CTRL H.

It is in...

/home/USERNAME/.local/share/Trash/files

Example Dyndns Config file

2011-01-05T16:46:00.000-08:00

/etc/ddclient.conf file

# Configuration file for ddclient generated by debconf
#
# /etc/ddclient.conf

#comment out next line if you don't run a mail server
mail=root

daemon=300
pid=/var/run/ddclient.pid

protocol=dyndns2
use=web
#, web=checkip.dyndns.com, web-skip='IP Address'

server=members.dyndns.org
login=login-name
password='replace-with-real-password'

mydomainname.dyndns.org

Automatically backup a Rivendell database

2010-12-20T01:58:00.000-08:00

I have just discovered that there is a Rivendell Macro for backing up
a database as often as you wish.

DATABASE BACKUP

Mnemonic: DB
Syntax:
DB !
Create a backup copy of the active Rivendell database in .

On my set up I made a new macro called back up database. It has only 2
lines in it.

DB /home/geoff/Downloads/RivendellBackUp/RD-Backup.sql!
RN /home/geoff/Downloads/RivendellBackUp/datestamp.sh!

The first line makes a new sql file called RD-backup.sql
The second line runs a shell script that renames the backup sql file
to the current day's date.

#!/bin/bash

#Special program to rename the current database back up with todays date.
currentdate=`date +%F-%X`

sleep 30
mv ~/Downloads/RivendellBackUp/RD-Backup.sql
~/Downloads/RivendellBackUp/RD-$currentdate.sql

You can set up this macro to run daily weekly or whenever.

Rivendell Time Pips at the Top of Hour by Frederick JH

2010-12-20T01:53:00.000-08:00

These instructions were written by Frederick JH and are very good

I made a pips tone audio file using Audacity. Using Generate>Tone from the
Audacity menu, I made a 800Hz, 3 seconds long audio file. I then used the
envelope tool to make 4 pips by pulling the audio level to nothing. The
first three pips are 150ms long starting on the 0 seconds, 1 second and 2
second marks. The fourth started at 2600ms and continued to the end of the
3 seconds.

Go into RDLibrary and create a macro cart. Call it something like "Pips
fade down and up". Then add the following three lines:

MD 1 -9 500!
SP 3000!
MD 1 0 1!

Then go into RDCatch and schedule this macro cart each hour at ??:59:57
Then again in RDCatch schedule a playback of your pips audio cart each
hour at ??:59:57

You need to have a playback output setup in RDAdmin>Manage Hosts> select
your host >Edit>RDCatch>Play Deck Setup a Play Deck to the same Card: and
Port: numbers as one of the Main Log outputs in RDAdmin>Manage Hosts>
select your host >Edit>RDAirplay

What is not real obvious is that you can setup more than one playback deck
for RDCatch. Just select another Play Deck number from the drop down then
set the Card: and Port: numbers to some thing other that None.

Explanation of the RML commands

MD 1 -9 500! => Deck fade Main Log(1) to -9dbFs in 500ms
SP 3000! => Sleep for 3 seconds (3000ms)
MD 1 0 1! => Deck fade Main Log(1) to 0dbFs in 1ms

One other tip, as you may be dreading making all those 48 events in
RDCatch there is a way to "copy" events. Make your original event save it,
then open it again to edit it. Next make the need changes for the new
event, in this case change the hour on the start time, then click the
"Save as New" button.

http://rivendell.tryphon.org/wiki/How_to_play_time_tone_pips_and_fade_the_currently_playing_audio

Backup, Repairing and Reinstalling GRUB

2010-01-19T02:46:00.000-08:00

1. Boot your computer up with Ubuntu Live CD
2. Open a terminal window or switch to a tty.
3. Change to SuperUser (that is, type "sudo -s"). Enter root passwords as necessary.
4. Type "grub"
5. Type "find /boot/grub/stage1". You'll get a response like "(hd0,1)". Use whatever your computer spits out for the following lines.
6. Type "root (hd0,1)", or whatever your hard disk + boot partition numbers are for Ubuntu.
7. Type "setup (hd0)", to install GRUB to MBR, or "setup (hd0,1)" or whatever your hard disk + partition nr is, to install GRUB to a partition.
8. Quit grub by typing "quit".
9. Reboot and remove the bootable CD.

These instructions from https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GrubHowto

Bulk renaming of file extensions

2009-11-15T01:55:00.000-08:00

#!/usr/bin/perl

# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2
# as published by the Free Software Foundation.
#

# Thanks Monica for making this code :)

# This program is used for changing file extensions on files
# eg.
# perl mvfiles.pl /home/username/filelist.txt
# NB file list cannot have \ (backslash) character in them.

# If you want log file of transformation send to log file
# perl mvfiles.pl /home/username/filelist.txt > conversion.log

# syntax of filelist.txt
# multiple lines similar to below
# "/home/username/filename1-you-want-to-change.mp2"
# "/home/username/filename2-you-want-to-change.mp2"
# "/home/username/filename3-you-want-to-change.mp2"

$csvfilename = "$ARGV[0]";

open(HANDLE, $csvfilename) || die ("Couldn't open that file");

@raw_data=;

close (HANDLE);

#read each line
foreach $line (@raw_data)
{
chomp ($line);
$line=~ s/"//g;
$oldfile=$line;

# old extension / new extension
$line=~ s/mp2/mp3/;

# prints new file name to screen
print "$line\n";

system(mv,$oldfile,$line);

}

2009-11-13T19:36:00.000-08:00

This is the original /etc/rd.conf

[Identity]
Password=*******
AudioOwner=ownername
AudioGroup=users

[Tuning]
UseRealtime=No
RealtimePriority=9

[Format]
SampleRate=44100
Channels=2

[mySQL]
Hostname=localhost
Loginname=owner
Password=********
Database=Rivendell
Driver=QMYSQL3

; [SoftKeys]
;
; This section can be used to program the RDSoftKeys applet, or you
; can use the --map-file= switch to configure multiple soft
; key setups on the same host.
;
; Columns=10
;
; Command1=hithlum.srlabs.loc:GO 3 1 1 0!
; Legend1=Telos 1 ON
; Color1=red
;
; Command2=hithlum.srlabs.loc:GO 3 2 1 0!
; Legend2=Telos 2 ON
; Color2=red
;

[Hacks]
; If you are getting no output level meter indications with an older
; ASI card (such as the ASI4215, ASI4113 or ASI4111), tru uncommenting
; the following line:
# UseStreamMeters=Yes

;
; Log Generation
;
; These are mainly useful for debugging!
;
[RDAirPlay]
Logfile=/home/username/rd/rdairplay.log
;
[RDCatchd]
Logfile=/home/username/rd/rdcatchd.log
;
[Ripcd]
Logfile=/home/username/rd/ripcd.log
;
[Caed]
Logfile=/home/username/rd/caed.log
EnableMixerLogging=No

#[Cae]
#AudioRoot=/var/snd
#AudioExtension=wav
#AllowNonstandardRates=Yes

;
; JACK Session Management
;
; See the 'JACK.txt' file for details on how this works!
;
; [JackSession]
; Source1=rivendell_1:playout_0L
; Destination1=alsa_pcm:playback_1
;
; Source2=rivendell_1:playout_0R
; Destination2=alsa_pcm:playback_2
;
; Source3=rivendell_1:playout_1L
; Destination3=alsa_pcm:playback_3
;
; Source4=rivendell_1:playout_1R
; Destination4=alsa_pcm:playback_4
;
; Source5=rivendell_1:playout_2L
; Destination5=alsa_pcm:playback_9
;
; Source6=rivendell_1:playout_2R
; Destination6=alsa_pcm:playback_10
;
; Source7=alsa_pcm:capture_1
; Destination7=rivendell_1:record_0L
;
; Source8=alsa_pcm:capture_2
; Destination8=rivendell_1:record_0R
;
; Source9=alsa_pcm:capture_3
; Destination9=rivendell_1:record_1L
;
; Source10=alsa_pcm:capture_4
; Destination10=rivendell_1:record_1R
;
; Source11=alsa_pcm:capture_9
; Destination11=rivendell_1:record_2L
;
; Source12=alsa_pcm:capture_10
; Destination12=rivendell_1:record_2R

Small Tip - make your tab completion case insensitive

2009-08-31T04:34:00.000-07:00

You may know that if you have a directory called

My-Documents

and you want to change to it, you have to do something like this

cd My-[TAB]

And you will end with the full command like this.

cd My-Documents

But, if you do this

cd my-[TAB]

You will probable hear the system's beep and nothing else, because Linux is case sensitive, if you want to be able to use TAB with capital letter or without it, add this line to /etc/inputrc, or to $HOME/.inputrc

set completion-ignore-case on

Now it will work with the capital My-Doc... or without it as in my-doc ...

(This tip from...)

http://www.go2linux.org/case-insensitive-TAB-completion-inputrc

Rotter

2009-07-16T03:04:00.001-07:00

Another piece of logging software is....

Rotter

Rotter is a Recording of Transmission / Audio Logger for JACK. It was designed for use by radio stations, who are legally required to keep a recording of all their output. Rotter runs continuously, writing to a new file every hour.

Rotter can output files in servaral different strutures, including all files in a single directory or create a directory structure.The advantage of using a folder hierarchy is that you can store related files in the hour's directory.

It is released under the GPL license.

http://www.aelius.com/njh/rotter/

Rivendell Installation in Ubuntu and Debian

2009-07-16T02:36:00.000-07:00

If you want to install Rivendell in Ubuntu machine check out Alban's Blog.

http://blog.tryphon.org/alban/archives/2009/04/19/quick-start-for-rivendell-on-debianubuntu/

http://www.rivendellaudio.org/index.shtml

50 Volt Line Transformers

2009-07-16T02:17:00.000-07:00

To move audio from studio to transmitter without having the requirement of screened cable I use a 50 volt line transformer.
You need:-
All the part numbers (and photos) are from Jaycar Electronics.

1 x KC5152 Champ audio amp kit

2 x MM1900 Line transformers

Feed the audio into the amplifier and then into the secondary of one transformer. The primary of the transformer feeds over the long cable to the primary of the second transformer. It then gets stepped down to line level at the destination.

Warning!
Don't touch the wires between the 2 transformers. There could be as much as 50 volts AC!

Logging Radio Station Audio

2008-08-24T22:11:00.000-07:00

This script looks complicated. But it basically records 30 min (or 29 mins 56 seconds) chunks of our radio station program which is required for legal reasons.
Because each sound recorder process getting killed takes a few seconds to complete, I found it necessary to be 4 seconds short of 30 mins. I don't think 4 seconds being lost every 30 mins is too much of a problem. I heard of a professional solution loosing 10 seconds every 15 minutes.

One way to cure this would be 2 sound cards and alternate between the 2 cards.

Sound recording script
Need one of these for every 30 mins you are recording.

#!/bin/bash
killall sound-recorder

sound-recorder -s44100 -b16 -k -A/dev/dsp -S29:56 -fwav /mnt/250gig/share/wav/0600.wav

sleep 10

lame -b 64 -m m /mnt/250gig/share/wav/0600.wav /mnt/250gig/share/mp3/`date +%y%m%d`-0600.mp3

Crontab entries
New line for every 30 mins you are recording.

crontab -l

00 6 * * * /home/username/scripts/0600.sh > /dev/null 2>&1

Using rdimport to import mp3 files

2008-08-13T17:52:00.000-07:00

rdimport is a great tool to import large numbers of mp3s into your music database.

To find out how to use rdimport functions type

rdimport --help

How I used rdimport

So this is how I added a hole lot of songs to my RD database...

rdimport --verbose --segue-level=-10 Examplegroupname *.mp3

This imports everything with an MP3 file extension in a particular directory to the RD database, and places a SEQUE LEVEL fade point at the end of the track at such a point where the volume drops to -10dB. A new CART number is created for each file.

You are limited to approx 2000 songs in a directory for conversion using rdimport. If you have a larger number you would be best to split into 2 directories of say 1500 if you had 3000 songs in a directory.

The only songs that don't get converted with more than one DOT or comma in the file name. eg Artist Name - Song Name..mp3

or Artist Name - Song Name, Middle Name.mp3

Another thing you can do is make all the tracks CUTs inside the one cart.

rdimport --verbose --segue-level=-10 --single-cart Examplegroupname *.mp3

or if the CART already exists you can add CUTs to it.

rdimport --verbose --segue-level=-10 --to-cart=400 Examplegroupname *.mp3

Other things to consider with Linux and Unix based systems is all file names directory paths are case sensitive. eg Song Name.mp3 is different from song name.mp3 And when converting files using RDIMPORT... the group name is case sensitive.

Configuring Tascam CD-X1500 to Auto Cue play etc

2008-08-13T17:45:00.000-07:00

1. Reset the CD players to factory defaults in case you have already muddled them up.
-Put your finger on SHIFT key and turn JOG wheel.
-Take finger off SHIFT and then turn JOG wheel to 06 Factory Preset
(06 F_PrE)
-Push SHIFT momentarily to get SUrE prompt hit SHIFT to confirm.
2. Display will return to normal. Now hit SHIFT to show remaining time on cd (The countdown timer)
3. Hit FLASH button to turn off the word flash on display.
4. Hold finger on SHIFT & push BEND - key to put onto ACue mode.
5. Hold finger on SHIFT & push BEND + key to put onto ARdy mode.
6. Cycle through TEMPO functions to show 0.0 in display. Hold TAP key in for about 2 seconds. Tempo display will change to - - -
7. Take any CDs out of player. Hold Finger on SHIFT and hit the CUE button once... display shows PLY... hit CUE button once more to go to CUE mode.
8. Put cd on tray... close draw and cue button will flash for a few seconds... once its cued....CUE button will stay on and play will flash, till you hit the play button or your fader start.

Note. You'll have to do this for each side of cd player.

Triggering the player to start
Briefly touch the tip of a mono 3.5 mm phone plug on the case of the cd player and it will start going.