specialized searches

Link for "Research Beyond Google: 119 Authoritative, Invisible, and Comprehensive Resources" - removed from linkbar on saispace2 and put it here...

Toshiba laptop power problem

H brought in a laptop, a Toshiba Satellite M35X, with the power problem and solution as given at laptoprepairguy.com - he had done all the homework. Using the beautiful disassembly guide from irisvista.comKR opened it up with occasional help from me and did the job. On putting it back, it did not show any display. In the evening, came back and checked again, while it was charging all the while - turning the speakers on with the switch provided, heard error beeps - 1 short, 3 short, 3 short, 1 short. Was it the Phoenix BIOS motherboard bad signal 1-3-3 ?! No - I suspected the RAM. Removed it - a single 512 MB DDR, the same signal. Replaced it in the other slot, no beeps! Put it back in the first, this time seated it properly at 30 degree angle and more inside, slid in without any problem, now booted fine. But the soldering or the power jack still has problems, jiggling the power plug makes and breaks the contact. Maybe he can live with it, or maybe he wants to use the external jack method.

XP bug in handling zipped files

When XP copies files from a "Compressed folder" into another directory, that is to say, extracts from a zip file, it creates a temp folder inside

C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Temp 

but forgets to delete the temp folder afterwards if the files are readonly. So, the temp directory fills up...

Microsoft says call 800-MICROSOFT for reporting bugs. In case anyone in the US reads this, they can do so. Meanwhile, I'll post this on an XP Newsgroup as 'bug in extracting read-only files from zip file'.

Power problems

Power problems over the weekend. Saturday night, heard some bang, burning smell. It seems transformer is shorting. Monday night power temporarily restored using School Hostel transformer. The 1.5 KVA Numeric UPS which has input section trouble taken to Studio, from where it is supposed to be picked up and taken to ATP for repair. M, the repair guy, says the circuit board is damaged, may cost a bit for repairs.

online video documentaries

From Digg, a list of free online documentaries.

convert AMR to WAV and vice versa

DM's next query is also easily solved by Googling - the very first result gave MIKSOFT's Mobile AMR converter

ActiveSync toggle

DM's trouble was probably caused by ActiveSync remaining running while he pulled out the Bluetooth dongle - the next time he put in the dongle, ActiveSync was probably locking the previously used COM port, so the next COM port was being used. Using ActiveSync toggle to stop ActiveSync from running all the time may help - directed there from PocketPCfreeware via googling activesync startup.

bluetooth blues

DM has problems with his Bluetooth dongle syncing with his PDA - the COM port keeps incrementing, and if it goes above 20 the sync doesn't work. Googled Bluetooth COM port and found a post with the same problem which had been solved with the method given in this FAQ article using a MS KB article to remove spurious com ports.

Added three streams log processing to Analog

Using the method given for virtual hosts, added the three streams to the Analog file for combined stats. Can of course have individual stats by commenting out the other streams...

Analog configuration

Added PAGEINCLUDEs for asp and mp3 in analog.cfg on fs3 so that the requests and pages would match better in the Downloads section webstats.

Sai Inspires backups and hard disk space

From PB: Found that sai inspires messages have not been sent for the day - 9th March. Restarted mysqld and httpd (mysqld failed to start). tail /var/log/mysqld/mysqld.log showed [ERROR] Can't start server: can't create PID file: No space left on device. /var was full. Moving apachebounces cleared up nearly 2 GB, restarted mysqld... it started. But sending messages with processqueue still failed, with [ERROR] /usr/sbin/mysqld: Can't open file: 'phplist_bounce.MYI' (errno: 145). tail /var/log/mysqld/mysqld.log showed [ERROR] /usr/sbin/mysqld: Can't open file: 'query_log.MYI and so on. Googling gave solution http://www.redrook.com/faqs/mysql-error-cant-open-file-something.myd-errno-145.php

REPAIR TABLE TableName

So, logging in to the

mysql -u root -p 

prompt, did that, and issue solved.

free wav editor and bookmarklets

A had sent me these links to Bookmarklets and Wavosaur.

On-demand with announcements joined

For on-demand with announcements, for KA dialog and Bhagavad gita slokas, using mpgtx - has alias mpgjoin to join ann and main files and putting in renamed folder. Created a new set of podcast php files for renamed songs and renamed specials. Need one more where the Prasanthi Mandir Bhajan will be served from the normal location, but only the name will be changed on the fly.

fs1 C: filling up

Found fs1 C: filling up - turned out to be log files. C:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles one folder had 20 GB, another 3 GB. Moved to D: , will zip, backup and delete.

removing claps

Removing claps in bhajan recordings - well defined claps near the mic are being removed pretty well by "Remove single click now" in Cool Edit Pro's Click-Pop Elimination filter dialog under Noise Reduction menu. Filtering clicks and pops with "Old Record Quiet audio" preset does a reasonably good job of large selections.

Today's achievements

Half an hour correcting dl.asp delivering 0 bytes to IE:

set fs=Server.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set f=fs.GetFile(strFilePath)
strFileSize=f.Size

L bumped up the audio on AsiaStar, now it's fine.

Rest of the morning doing Bhajan processing.

Afternoon tracing schedule problem with DST: found probable locale change so that

if (date > #11/03/2007#) and (date < #04/11/2007#) then

has stopped working and now needs to be

if (date > #03/11/2007#) and (date < #11/04/2007#) then

So, changed it to locale independent

if (date > DateSerial(2007, 03, 11)) and (date < DateSerial(2007, 11, 04)) then

instead. We're not changing the changeover times because then the Latin Americans would have four changes to their regular programming every year - following US DST and their own DST.

And evening was spent on playlist generation.

newline in csv breaks database tables

A single bad newline in a description field had the schedule page down for the last half hour while we traced and corrected the problem... Caution needed when copy/pasting descriptions especially from text files / emails as in the case of Telugu programs!

bhajan processing

Starting slowly on Bhajan processing. Yield is roughly an hour's worth for a morning's work.

changes to add PHP 5 compatibility

The forms in maillist were not PHP5 compatible: as noted by P, in PHP5, the posted variables are not automatically available, but requires the addition of lines like

$variablename=$_REQUEST["variablename"];

Did the necessary additions by searching for the name=parts and thus the required variablename in the forms. Partially implemented, so that most frequently used pages work.

changed Daylight savings times

Changed the code for daylight savings times for USA-Canada and Israel for 2007 checking out the info from http://timeanddate.com/time/dst2007.html

on-demand links on schedule page

An interim solution implemented, which will work only for single file items. Probably, multi-file items will need a rethinking along the lines of my previous post. Current implementation uses a single extra filename field in the remote database. And the logic to automatically add this is

if ( ($CATEGORYNAME=="Special") OR ($CATEGORYNAME=="Discourse")  )
  {
  if (Strncmp($NEXT_FILENAME,$FILENAME,7))
    $DOWNLOAD_FILENAME=$FILENAME;

  if (strcasecmp(trim($NEXT_DESCRIPTION),trim($DESCRIPTION)) )
    $DOWNLOAD_FILENAME=$FILENAME;

    }

with

 $DOWNLOAD_FILENAME="";

if the condition fails.

audio distortion at AsiaStar uplink

There seemed to be considerable distortion in low frequencies, and M wanted the jingle during the start and end of Moments of Oneness to be broadcast undistorted. The line in the playout scripts was

mpg123 -o alsa09 -g 70 -q -a $DSP_DEVICE   "$line"

But the gain factor of 70% was not being set - probably some permissions issue. After IM and emails, L found the audio card bad, since using another one seems to give clear audio. But currently the DBMax is byepassed, so audio levels are sometimes low. Next task is to get it thru the DBMax.

play avi and wmv on MacOS X

Since we were mulling over the MirrorDome and such systems, just checking if DivX files play with QuickTime - this article links to some plugins to achieve this.

Windows media components for Quicktime is supposed to let you play Windows media files on Mac.

renewing postgres database from dump

My local copy of the SGH postgres database was out of date, so I picked up the dump from saiwaves

pg_dump sgh > /home/sgh/sghdbdump

Before loading onto my system, I had to remove the existing database with

dropdb sgh

then create it again with

createdb

and then run

psql -d sgh -f sghdbdump

Sirf kuch hi lamhon mein apka swadisht database tayyaar!

downloadable links on the schedule

For implementing downloadable links on the schedule page, we'll need some database changes at our end also - a "flag" saying allow/don't allow download - so that the appropriate data can be dumped into the csv file for import into remote database. Experimenting with adding a filename field to the AsiaStar schedule table...

new on-demand code

Quietly removed the embedded XSPF player from the on-demand pages, replacing it with the mp3player from http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=Flash_MP3_Player opening in a new window using a simple target="_blank" In replacing the old pages' code, learnt some regular expression syntax from KWrite's regular expression editor -
1. Reg Exps have to be only on a single line - end of line symbol $ terminates the regexp.
2. object.*$ means object followed by any characters till end of line.

Watch TV online

Got this link from Digg or Wired or somewhere:

http://www.onetipaday.com/2007/02/14/updated-list-of-places-to-watch-tv-for-free-online/

iPod repair

Saw a Wired article on "iPod mechanics" repairing broken iPods, and checked out www.NYCiPodDoctor.com But the cost of replacing a hard disk on the old broken 1st Gen iPod is greater than the cost of buying a new flash-based mp3 player....

used iMacs

Found some nice deals via a google ad for used iMacs at megamacs.com - Apple iMac 233MHz Bondi 96MB, 4GB, CD for $29.99! But unfortunately we can't get them by normal shipping methods - there's a $200 anti-dumping duty, it appears!
http://www.emergic.org/collections/tech_talk_letter_to_arun_shourie.html

http://www.ieport.com/Cus2004/Tariff/not30.htm

virus attack

Like almost any all-Windows shop, the PDS was hit in 2nd half of Feb by a virus/worm which was creating a fun.exe in all folders, and spreading to all machines via shared folders. Norton Enterprise antivirus was not catching it or maybe because it was already loaded into memory, it was recreating instances. P finally cleaned it with AVG free + using msconfig to stop it from loading on startup.

problems connecting to our playout server

In the first part of Feb, we had some trouble connecting to our playout server at Melbourne. The traceroute was taking too many hops. Now, for example, the traceroute reaches the server in around 22 hops. A little on the high side?

traceroute to <snip> , 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
 <snip>
 3  203.200.24.1.ill-bgl.static.vsnl.net.in (203.200.24.1)  6.730 ms  6.518 ms  6.491 ms
 4  202.54.86.63.ill-bgl.static.vsnl.net.in (202.54.86.63)  7.045 ms  7.027 ms  7.012 ms
 5  203.197.162.54.ill-bgl.static.vsnl.net.in (203.197.162.54)  8.562 ms  7.862 ms  8.308 ms
 6  202.54.12.249.ill-bgl.static.vsnl.net.in (202.54.12.249)  10.766 ms  7.818 ms  7.894 ms
 7  59.163.16.250.static.vsnl.net.in (59.163.16.250)  109.642 ms  105.444 ms  105.941 ms
 8  59.163.16.250.static.vsnl.net.in (59.163.16.250)  106.086 ms  105.597 ms  114.480 ms
 9  203.131.241.157 (203.131.241.157)  272.903 ms  273.216 ms  272.864 ms
10  ge-2-3-0.r00.newthk01.hk.bb.gin.ntt.net (203.131.240.205)  277.114 ms  277.567 ms  277.532 ms
11  p4-1-1-0.r00.tokyjp01.jp.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.4.50)  279.050 ms  279.150 ms  280.268 ms
12  p4-3-0-0.r00.sydnau01.au.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.4.162)  398.757 ms  446.588 ms  398.916 ms
13  ge-0-0-0.a02.sydnau01.au.ra.gin.ntt.net (202.68.64.222)  399.456 ms  400.323 ms  399.194 ms
14  202.68.65.18 (202.68.65.18)  354.208 ms  377.895 ms  355.543 ms
15  * connect1.sybr4.global-gateway.net.nz (203.96.120.122)  352.962 ms  359.593 ms
16  so-4-1-0.cre1.hay.connect.com.au (202.10.4.93)  367.183 ms  354.246 ms  372.219 ms
17  so-5-0-0.cre1.bur.connect.com.au (202.10.0.251)  368.156 ms  368.916 ms  376.512 ms
18  so-0-0-1.dst2.mel.connect.com.au (202.10.0.134)  370.836 ms  367.982 ms  375.395 ms
19  gigabitethernet0-1.cor6.mel.connect.com.au (203.63.170.183)  369.349 ms  388.766 ms  398.202 ms
20  AUS130611-3.gw.connect.com.au (203.63.104.101)  370.382 ms  378.105 ms  416.715 ms
21  worldspace-gw.ozonline.com.au (203.23.159.193)  375.345 ms  376.441 ms  409.865 ms
22  * * *

Force Refresh browser window

To force a refresh of cached content:

shift+reload in Mozilla-based products and control+refresh in Internet Explorer

remove from print queue

As root, to remove all print jobs from print queue

lprm - 

trying de-clipping tools

Trying de-clipping tools like Cool Edit Pro's built-in and Acoustica's built-in on bhajan recordings. No use. Since it is the singer mic alone which has the distortion, and since it is added to all the rest, the mixed signal can't be cleaned by these sw.